Road accidents are a fairly common sight in Nevada’s roads. It is a regular sight to read about crashes caused by drunk drivers or reckless pedestrians. Collisions caused by lead drivers may not be as common, but they still pop up from time to time.
In most crashes, the fault lies in only one party or another, regardless of whether or not they started the crash directly. However, Nevada recognizes that there are circumstances where all parties involved led to the crash in one way or another. In such cases, the state awards damages to select parties under the Modified Comparative Negligence rule.
What is this Rule?
Comparative negligence is a legal rule that reduces the amount of damages a plaintiff in a road accident can receive proportionate to how much they contribute to the accident in the first place. That is, if a person seeking damages caused part of the accident in the first place, they will receive only a fraction of the possible reparations. This stands in contrast to contributory negligence, a doctrine that bars reparations even if the plaintiff only if their part in the accident was minimal.
There are currently three types of comparative negligence in effect across the United States today. They are:
Pure comparative negligence, which subtracts the reparations from the amount of damages inflicted by the plaintiff (i.e., only getting 20% reparations if the accident was 80% their fault)
‘Threshold’ comparative negligence, where the plaintiff can only receive reparations if their contribution to the collision is not greater to the other parties. This is Nevada’s current rule, with a damage/negligence threshold of no more than 50% for the plaintiff.
‘Parity’ comparative negligence, where the plaintiff’s contribution should not be the same value as the combination of all the other involved parties.
Note that the terms used for the two types of comparative negligence are conjectural, based on their nature.
Threshold?
As stated earlier, Nevada follows a modified comparative negligence doctrine based on a 50% threshold. If the plaintiff breaches that threshold, they are barred from recovering any reparations from the accident. Also remember that the court has the final say in the amount recoverable for the plaintiff, regardless of how large or small the percentage of negligence is.
In any case, this can be a better situation than being in a handful of states that still implement the contributory negligence doctrine. These states include:
Alabama
Maryland
North Carolina
District of Columbia
Special Circumstances
There are special circumstances where the responsibility of the crime is placed squarely in the defendant instead of being shared between the parties involved. Such cases are the prerogative of the courts and may or may not be based on the circumstances of the case. Two examples include:
Failure to follow protocol or policy (i.e., failing to provide safety equipment or guidelines that would have saved an otherwise careless plaintiff)
Failure to follow societal or judicial norms (like not holding a minor responsible for consenting to sexual activities with an adult, because it was society’s duty to protect the minor in the first place)
Get in touch with a defense attorney to better understand how Nevada’s modified comparative negligence doctrine works.