When a personal injury occurs, you can try to seek compensation. However, your incident needs to meet several requirement. One such requirement relates to shared fault. Find out about Wyoming state laws regarding shared fault injuries.
What is Shared Fault?
In some states, shared fault laws allow people to receive compensation for injuries even if they are partially to blame. As long as they are less than 50% responsible for the incident, they can seek compensation.
When shared fault occurs, the offending party shoulders most of the blame for the accident. Although you acted in a way that contributed to it, the other individual bears more responsibility.
Shared fault applies to personal injury claims. This involves car accidents, slip and fall accidents, and more. If you are only partially to blame, then you could file a lawsuit against the other party.
Determining Fault
Before considering Wyoming shared fault laws, you should understand how fault works. In all injury cases, there is some type of fault. You need to be able to prove fault to have a valid personal injury claim.
Typically, fault shows some type of negligence. For example, a store owner could leave a wet patch in the floor. By not having a safe environment for you, the store owner could be responsible for you slipping and receiving an injury.
But determining fault isn’t always easy. In fact, it’s rare for personal injury cases to be clear-cut. Often, the offending party’s attorney argues that their client was not responsible. They also could argue that the injured party was the one responsible for the injury.
When cases aren’t clear, the court needs to analyze the situation. They look for some negligence. If the individual or business was negligent, they might be responsible for the incident. But when both parties were negligent, shared fault comes into play.
Wyoming Shared Fault Law
In Wyoming, injury cases use shared fault law. As long as you are less than 50% responsible for an incident, you could seek compensation.
The more at fault you are, the less money you will receive for the incident. In Wyoming, you receive a percentage of compensation. Once the court determines the total compensation, they determine your fault percentage.
Consider this example. You are 10% at fault for a car accident. Although the other driver was driving aggressively, you failed to signal. The court might determine the total compensation to be $100,000. However, you will only receive $90,000 of that. The court takes out your percentage of fault from the total payout.
Other Important Wyoming Laws
If you plan on filing a personal injury claim, there are several other Wyoming laws of which you should be aware. For one, you should know about the statute of limitations. In Wyoming, you only have a certain period of time to file a civil lawsuit. The length of that period depends on the incident.
Another important law relates to damage caps. In some states, there are caps that prevent you from seeking high compensation values. However, Wyoming has no damage caps. You are free to seek as much compensation as you deem fit.
If you want to file a claim, you should speak to someone at the Kent Spence law firm. Getting compensation for your injuries isn’t easy, but it is possible. You can speak to a Wyoming personal injury lawyer for more information.