North Carolina Personal Injury Legal News
Here is an interesting article about the outdated and unfair law in North Carolina known as contributory negligence. Click here.
North Carolina is one of four states that still use this old approach to civil cases. Contributory negligence means that if you are only the slighest bit negligent in contributing to the accident, then you recover nothing. The consequences of this law can be quite absurd. Indeed, there have been cases in North Carolina where a driver went through a red light and caused a wreck. Yet, the jury, no doubt through some impressive arguments by an attorney, concluded that the victim was negligent for not seeing and anticipating the driver going through the red light. As a result, the victim gets nothing. Most states use a form of law called comparative negligence. In comparative negligence, a jury decides what portion of responsibility each party has and divides the recovery based on that percentage.
If you are in a wreck where the insurance company denies your claim saying that you were negligent, don’t give up. Call a lawyer and get advice as the insurance company is certainly not on your side.