Fault isn’t always clear after a crash, and even if you were partially to blame, you may still have a strong case in Arizona. This page answers common questions about liability, insurance disputes, police reports, and how to protect your rights when fault is in question.
A lot of people think that if they were partly to blame for a crash, they can’t sue. That’s not true, especially here in Arizona.
Arizona follows a pure comparative negligence rule. That means you can still recover compensation even if you were mostly at fault for the accident. Your recovery is simply reduced by your percentage of fault.
For example, if you’re found to be 60% responsible for the crash and the other driver is 40% at fault, you can still recover 40% of your total damages. So even when you share some of the blame, you shouldn’t assume you have no case.
Every accident is unique, and determining fault can be complex. That’s why it’s important to talk to an experienced Arizona car accident attorney who can help you understand your rights and make sure you don’t leave money on the table.
You were just in a car accident. Who do you think is responsible for paying for your damages? The answer might surprise you. You might think that when you’re in an accident that the only person responsible for paying for your damages is the other driver.
In reality, there are a lot more options that we can look into for you. A lot of people can be responsible for your damages, whether that be:
– The driver
– Another passenger in the vehicle
– The owner of the vehicle, if it’s a different person from the driver
– A company that owns the vehicle
– Your insurance company, if you have the right insurance
– Maintenance workers
– Negligent HOAs
Really, there’s a whole list of possibilities for you, depending on your case, that you can recover money from.
A lot of clients come to us with concerns because they don’t want to sue anyone. They don’t want to ruin anyone’s life, but they are injured and they want to get compensated.
The answer is, you don’t have to sue them, and you don’t have to collect from them personally. We can limit your recovery to the insurance coverage available if that’s what you want.
If I am partially at fault for the accident, how does the percentage of fault get calculated? There’s no real formula. It’s really a back-and-forth argument between the insurance company and you or your attorney.
The more evidence your attorney can collect to place blame on the other driver, the less fault percentage will be placed on you. It’s really just kind of a battle.
The only way that fault percentage is truly calculated is if your case goes to trial, and a jury decides the percentage based on the evidence presented.
If I was going 100 miles an hour and someone ran a red light and I T-boned them while proceeding through a green light, am I going to be placed at fault because I was speeding excessively?
Maybe there will be some comparative negligence on you, because if you weren’t speeding, you might not have been in the intersection at the same time the other person ran the red light.
But most of the blame should still be on the person who ran the red light, because they entered the intersection when they were not allowed to do so.
If you was in an accident and the other driver’s insurance says that I’m 70% at fault, so they’re only paying for 30% of my damages. Can I change that? Yes, you can, with evidence.
The easiest or best way to change that is to hire an attorney and provide your attorney with as much information and as much evidence as possible about what happened. Then let your attorney argue with the insurance company and present that evidence to reduce your fault and increase your recovery.
How do you prove emotional distress? There are different ways that we can prove emotional distress:
– If you’re suffering from anxiety, depression, mood swings after the accident, or maybe even PTSD, consulting with a therapist or a psychologist and documenting what you’re going through and those symptoms.
– Another way that we document emotional distress is by speaking to your loved ones—your friends, your family, your spouse, your coworkers, your boss, asking about how you’ve changed since the accident. We look at changes they’ve noticed in you mentally, physically, your mood, your demeanor, your overall affect, such as who you are now versus who you were then.
The other driver didn’t get a ticket, so I probably don’t have a case. A lot of clients think that a clean police report means they’re out of luck, but that’s not true. There is fault regardless of whether or not anyone was ticketed.
A lot of times officers don’t want to do the paperwork or feel bad and don’t want to write a ticket, so they don’t. And that doesn’t matter as far as your recovery as long as we can prove what happened and who caused the crash.
Can dashcam footage or a witness statement outweigh a police report? Absolutely. The police officer wasn’t there. The police officer didn’t see the accident happen most of the time, so they are writing their report based on what each party involved told them.
But if you have dashcam footage, that shows what happened, and there’s no way to argue with that. Also, a witness who is independent and has nothing to lose or gain from saying what happened and who’s at fault is very strong evidence and often can overcome a police report that’s not favorable for you.
What if the officer got it wrong? It happens more than you think. Oftentimes, the officer writes down the wrong vehicle, interchanges the drivers, or doesn’t complete a full investigation and just writes down what one person says, especially if one driver was transported to the hospital before the officers arrived, and they only get one side of the story. And that’s okay. It happens. An attorney can collect evidence to fix that, to refute it.
The most important part of arguing that the officer was wrong is knowing that the officer wasn’t at the scene when the accident happened. The officer didn’t see it. So what the officer is writing down is what the officer was told. And if the officer only took a statement from one driver, that statement is obviously very biased.
So we look for evidence to refute what the officer said. That could be:
– The property damage and how the vehicles were hit
– Body-worn camera footage showing what was actually said to the officer
– Camera footage from nearby businesses
– Dashcam footage
There are so many ways to prove that an officer got it wrong.
Still figuring out what to do after your crash? Visit our car accident lawyers page to see how we can help you get answers, support, and compensation. Or call us for your free initial consultation.