If you have been injured in a car accident on the Mississippi Gulf Coast you may wonder how percentages of fault are determined for the various drivers. Mississippi is a pure comparative fault state. That means the jury will determine the amount of liability for each driver involved in the wreck. For instance, maybe you were driving 10 miles per hour over the speed limit at the time of the collision. The “at fault” driver t-bones you because they were not paying attention. A jury may attribute 5% fault to you for speeding and 95% on the “at fault” driver. The amount you are actually awarded will be reduced by the amount of fault the jury assesses to you. If the jury assesses your damages at $25,000, but found you to be 5% liable for the car accident, you will be awarded $23,750.

The same holds true for multi vehicle collisions. We settled a catastrophic car accident injury earlier this year where a chain reaction of wrecks occurred. We were able to work with the other insurance defense attorneys on the other side of the case to agree on what level of fault each driver assumed. We were finally able to determine that the first vehicle that rear ended our client was 65% responsible for the wreck and the second was 35% responsible. Thus at fault parties’ insurance carriers awarded our client $350,000 based on those percentages. One carrier paid 65% of that amount and the other insurance carrier paid 35%. Hopefully this is helpful in understanding how percentages of fault are applied in a car accident case in Mississippi.