Comparative Negligence or Comparative Fault

Comparative negligence or comparative fault are defenses provided to defendants to lessen what a particular defendant will be required to pay in a claim. Each defense has to do with some amount of blame being assigned to the plaintiff or some other party. In Mississippi relies on the Jury assigning a percentage of fault to each defendant. The jury will first determine the amount of damages caused by the injury and then assign the percentage of those damages that each defendant should pay.

So any judgment of damages will be reduced by the amount that the Plaintiff is found to be at fault. Often juries confuse what is awarded by awarding the amount they think is fair and not realizing that this amount will be further reduced based on the comparative fault guidelines.

For example if a plaintiff is injured and the jury would like the plaintiff to actually receive 100,000.00 for their injuries the following comparative fault situations will get the plaintiff to that number:

100,000.00 in damages with 0% fault assigned to the plaintiff 100% to the named defendant.

200,000.00 in damages with 50% fault assigned to the plaintiff and 50% to the named defendant.

1,000,000.00 in damages with 90% fault assigned to the plaintiff 10% to the named defendant.