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West Virginia Negligence Laws (Part A)

The Miley Legal Group has put together a library of current, relevant articles on a number of topics, including car accidents, truck accidents, insurance fraud, medical malpractice, and product malfunction. Our database is freely available, helping personal injury victims in West Virginia 24 hours a day.

If you are considering filing a personal injury lawsuit in West Virginia, you will need to understand legal terms related to West Virginia personal injury law. One of these key terms is "negligence." A qualified Clarksburg personal injury lawyer can explain how West Virginia negligence laws will impact your personal injury claim.

Definition of Negligence

Negligence can be defined as a failure to act in a way that a reasonable person would do under the same conditions, resulting in the harm to a person or property, even if the harm was unintentional.

Types of Negligence

Negligence laws vary from state to state, but there are 2 primary categories of negligence laws; contributory negligence and comparative negligence. Comparative negligence is further divided into 3 subcategories:

Pure comparative negligence;
Modified comparative negligence (50% rule); and
Modified comparative negligence (51% rule).

West Virginia negligence laws fall under the modified comparative negligence - 50% rule.

West Virginia Injury Claims and Comparative Negligence

Most states use some form of comparative negligence when determining damages in personal injury lawsuits. Comparative negligence is a "kinder, gentler" approach to awarding compensation than is contributory negligence. Under comparative negligence systems, an accident victim is more likely to receive at least some compensation even if the victim's actions contributed to the accident.

Your Clarksburg accident lawyer can talk to you about comparative negligence and how it will impact your accident claim. This will be especially critical if you believe that your actions contributed in some way to the cause of the accident that resulted in your serious injury.

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