What is comparative fault and how could it impact your Seattle personal injury car accident injury case in Washington State? Comparative fault is a statute created by the Washington State legislature that states that injuries suffered in a case can be separated by their attributed fault and reduced by the percentage each party is responsible for. This means that if you are injured in a car accident and the jury states that you are 10% at fault for causing your injuries, your award at trial will be reduced by 10%. Additionally, where there is two or more defendants responsible for the car accident injuries that you suffered, their share of responsibility for the injuries will be attributed based on the percentage of fault and offset by your fault. 

However, there is also a statute that allows for one defendant to pay for the entire damages suffered by you in the car accident injury case. This occurs only where the plaintiff has not attributable fault and one of the parties is in a better position to pay for the damages suffered in the car accident than the other defendant. At that point, the innocent plaintiff recovers 100% of their damages from one defendant and the other defendant will have the ability to go after the second non paying defendant for the amount they covered for the others’ responsibility. This allows for an innocent victim of a car accident to recover for their injuries from a guilty party and the guilty parties to collect among each other. 

This is a great statute for people that are injured by one party that does not have insurance but there is also another guilty defendant who has insurance. That party will have to pay the full amount, should their insurance have enough coverage to pay for the damages. This often comes into play where there is little or no UIM insurance on the party of the plaintiff or little or no insurance on the part of one of the defendants. If there is no insurance on any side, however, it is very difficult if impossible to realistically see any money from any of the defendants for the car accident injury case.