{"id":32805,"date":"2012-01-22T13:57:11","date_gmt":"2012-01-22T18:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/the_impact_of_contributory_neg\/"},"modified":"2024-12-17T15:46:21","modified_gmt":"2024-12-17T20:46:21","slug":"the-impact-of-contributory-neg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/the-impact-of-contributory-neg\/","title":{"rendered":"The Impact Of Contributory Negligence On A Personal Injury Claim"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As lawyers we are often consulted by prospective clients inquiring about whether they \u201chave a case.\u201d  Sometimes they do and sometimes they do not.  Oftentimes those who do not have cases are themselves guilty of contributory negligence.  In Georgia, this is a very difficult problem to overcome because typically juries are not as likely to award damages to someone who substantially contributed to their own injuries due to their own negligence.<\/p>\n<p>A classic case of contributory negligence is where a motorist is approaching an intersection and decides to turn and while so doing is struck by a motorist coming from the opposite direction.  While the speed of the oncoming motorist may have contributed to the collision, the failure to yield, obviously, is part of the equation.  Had the client not failed to yield, notwithstanding the speed of the oncoming vehicle, the collision may have been avoided.  If the speed was so great that the client understandably miscalculated whether they had time to make a turn, obviously, is a factually specific issue.  However, in the hypothetical posed, one can readily see that juries might conclude that the motorist who failed to yield substantially contributed to their own injuries and therefore the speeding motorist might not be held accountable for the full extent of any damages sustained.<\/p>\n<p>In Georgia, contributory negligence claims are submitted to the jury under instruction that if the plaintiff or the person seeking damages was themselves fifty percent (50%) or more responsible for the cause of any given accident then they recover nothing, no matter what their injuries are.  If they are less than fifty percent (50%) negligent, they recover their damages reduced by a comparison of their negligence with the defendant who has been sued.  Thus, if a jury were to conclude that the plaintiff was forty percent (40%) negligent then they would be entitled to recover sixty percent (60%) of their damages, whatever they might be.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/the-impact-of-contributory-neg\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading The Impact Of Contributory Negligence On A Personal Injury Claim\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As lawyers we are often consulted by prospective clients inquiring about whether they \u201chave a case.\u201d Sometimes they do and sometimes they do not. Oftentimes those who do not have cases are themselves guilty of contributory negligence. In Georgia, this is a very difficult problem to overcome because typically juries are not as likely to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[44],"class_list":["post-32805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-injury-wrongful-death","tag-personal-injury"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Impact Of Contributory Negligence On A Personal Injury Claim &#8212; Trial Attorney Blog &#8212; January 22, 2012<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As lawyers we are often consulted by prospective clients inquiring about whether they \u201chave a case.\u201d Sometimes they do and sometimes they do not. &#8212; January 22, 2012\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/the-impact-of-contributory-neg\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"The Impact Of Contributory Negligence On A Personal Injury Claim &#8212; 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Trial Attorney Blog &#8212; January 22, 2012","twitter_description":"As lawyers we are often consulted by prospective clients inquiring about whether they \u201chave a case.\u201d Sometimes they do and sometimes they do not. &#8212; January 22, 2012","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Finch McCranie, LLP","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/the-impact-of-contributory-neg\/","url":"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/the-impact-of-contributory-neg\/","name":"The Impact Of Contributory Negligence On A Personal Injury Claim &#8212; Trial Attorney Blog &#8212; January 22, 2012","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-01-22T18:57:11+00:00","dateModified":"2024-12-17T20:46:21+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4c607d19a3fdb947c462210c077ff4a4"},"description":"As lawyers we are often consulted by prospective clients inquiring about whether they \u201chave a case.\u201d Sometimes they do and sometimes they do not. &#8212; 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