The aftermath of a car accident is a confusing scene. You are trying to determine not only what damage has been done to your vehicle, but also what injuries you and your passengers may have sustained. If you live in one of the 39 “fault” states, you also need help determining who the liable party is. It can be difficult to know what to do because laws differ from state to state.

Faultless states

There are a dozen no-fault states where you should first contact your own insurance. In the District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and Utah, the injured parties must be seriously injured in order to sue the negligent driver for a settlement . .

The only other way a car accident lawsuit can occur is if medical bills and repair costs meet a certain monetary threshold. This threshold varies between states.

In failure states

All other states require the negligent driver to assume financial responsibility. However, if you believe that the other driver is at fault, it is your job to prove that this is the case. In several cases, it is obvious who is at fault. For example, the other driver could have run a red light or hit you from behind because he was not looking.

However, it is not always easy to determine who caused the car accident. If you or a passenger has been injured, there are three things you must prove.

The first is whether there was a legal obligation. In the case of motor vehicles, that legal obligation is that you operate your automobile with a reasonable level of care. You must obey the rules of the road and do your best to pay attention to the drivers around you.

Next, you must show that that legal obligation was disregarded or breached. In other words, you must show that the other driver was negligent in the way they operated their vehicle. Remember, the standard is how a “reasonable person” would behave. The negligent driver must act in contrast to what a normal person would do. One way to test this is if a traffic violation was issued to the other driver.

Finally, you must prove that the other driver’s negligence is what caused the injuries. Essentially, you need to show that your driving alone didn’t cause you or your passengers to get hurt, and if the accident hadn’t happened, everyone would be fine.

Shared failure cases

In some cases, both drivers acted negligently. If that’s the case, the injured drivers may not be able to recover any compensation from the other driver. What can be recovered is limited according to the rules of each state.

A state with purely comparative rules drivers who were also negligent in recovering damages from other at-fault drivers. However, the amount will depend on how much you share in liability. An example is if you are found liable for 70 percent of the accident and the damages total $ 10,000, you can only collect $ 3,000 from the other party.

States with modified comparative fault rules will allow you to collect a percentage from the other at-fault driver as long as your percentage in causing the accident is less than 50 percent. If it is determined that you are only 40 percent responsible and there is $ 10,000 in damages, you can collect $ 6,000. However, if you are still 70 percent liable, you don’t charge anything.

Finally, there is a contributory negligence rule in some states. This means that drivers who share the blame for the car accident cannot collect anything from each other.