Being partly at fault does not end your claim in California. It reduces what you recover by your percentage of the blame, and there is no cutoff point at which you lose the right to recover anything at all.
That rule has a name and a date. In Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804, the California Supreme Court abolished the old rule under which any fault of your own wiped out your claim entirely, and replaced it with comparative fault.
That rule applies to every kind of collision, but it comes up most in car accident claims, where two accounts of the same few seconds rarely match.
This article is by Accident Lawyer of California, P.C., the personal injury practice of Aryan Aliakbarzadeh, Esq. in Northridge, California, admitted to the State Bar of California in October 2012. It describes how these cases work in California; it is not advice about yours.
California is a pure comparative fault state, and most states are not Link to this section
This is where California differs from wherever your cousin had his accident, and it is worth understanding before you accept anybody’s opinion about your claim.
Many states use a modified version with a bar at 50 or 51 percent. Cross that line there and you recover nothing.
California has no bar. If you are found 30 percent responsible, you recover 70 percent of your losses. If you are found 80 percent responsible, you still recover 20 percent. The percentage reduces the number. It never switches the claim off.
So the real question is never whether you were partly at fault. It is what percentage, and who gets to decide it.
The adjuster’s percentage is an opening position Link to this section
Here is what actually happens. An adjuster reviews a thin file quickly, assigns you a share of fault, and presents an offer that reflects it. The number arrives sounding settled and official.
It is neither. Nobody has ruled on anything. It is one side’s opening position, produced by the company that writes the check, usually before most of the evidence exists.
The police report is not the decider, and a jury may never see it Link to this section
This surprises people more than anything else on this page.
Under Vehicle Code section 20013, a traffic collision report generally cannot be used as evidence in a trial, civil or criminal. California courts have kept it out precisely because jurors would give an official looking document more weight than it has earned.
On top of that, an officer is not permitted to simply announce who was to blame. An opinion that one driver was most responsible is a legal conclusion rather than a proper expert opinion.
None of this means the report is worthless. It records who was there, who said what at the scene, which witnesses existed and where the vehicles ended up, and all of that is useful. But if someone has told you that the report says you were at fault and therefore you have no claim, they have described a document a jury will probably never read.
What actually decides fault Link to this section
Physical evidence does most of the work. Damage patterns and where on each vehicle they sit. Final resting positions. Skid and scuff marks. Debris fields.
Then independent witnesses, who matter far more than either driver’s account, and who disappear quickly if nobody contacts them.
Then the scene itself. Signal timing, sight lines, obstructions, lane markings, lighting.
Then video. Businesses, doorbell cameras, buses and traffic cameras. This is the single most perishable category. A lot of systems overwrite within days or weeks. This is the reason speed matters more than almost anything else early in a case.
Where fault commonly gets split Link to this section
Rear end collisions. There is no automatic rule making the following driver fully responsible, though in practice the weight sits there. Sudden unexplained braking, or brake lights that were not working, are the arguments that shift some of it back.
Left turns across traffic. The turning driver carries most of it, but a vehicle that was speeding or ran the light does not get to stand entirely clean.
Lane changes and merges. These usually come down to damage geometry rather than what either driver remembers.
Pedestrians. Worth knowing that since January 2023, under the Freedom to Walk Act, crossing outside a crosswalk is no longer generally a citable offense in California unless there was an immediate danger of collision. Insurers still raise it to argue comparative fault, but the legal backdrop is not what it was.
The seat belt question Link to this section
If you were not wearing a seat belt, expect it to come up.
California allows a jury to consider seat belt non use when it apportions comparative fault, under Vehicle Code section 27315, subdivision (i), as applied in Housley v. Godinez (1992) 4 Cal.App.4th 737.
That is not the same as losing. Non use is relevant only to the injuries it actually made worse. An insurer that tries to apply it across your entire claim, including injuries a belt would not have affected, is overreaching.
The things people say that cost them Link to this section
Most of the fault assigned to injured people in California does not come from the collision. It comes from the hours after it.
Saying sorry at the scene, because you are a decent person and somebody is hurt.
Saying you are fine, before the adrenaline wears off and you discover you are not.
Guessing at speeds and distances in a recorded statement, under questions written specifically to produce a number.
Waiting three weeks to see a doctor, which gets argued later as proof the injury came from somewhere else entirely.
None of those are confessions. All of them get used.
When more than one driver is at fault Link to this section
Where several people share responsibility, California splits the two kinds of loss differently. Your economic losses, meaning medical bills and lost earnings, can generally be pursued fully against any responsible party. Your non economic losses, meaning the pain and the effect on your life, are apportioned so that each defendant pays only their own share.
In practice this is why it matters whether a second vehicle, a property owner or a public agency belongs in the claim at all.
There is a deadline, and one version of it is very short Link to this section
In California you generally have two years from the date of injury to file a personal injury lawsuit, under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1.
If a city, a county, a transit agency or any other public entity is involved, that changes completely. You have six months to file an administrative claim first, under Government Code section 911.2. Six months goes fast when you are still in treatment, and missing it can end a claim that was otherwise strong.
What to do this week Link to this section
Write down what you remember today, before it blurs. The weather, the signal, where the sun was, what you had been doing.
Photograph both vehicles from every angle and the intersection itself, including sight lines from where you were.
Ask nearby businesses about camera footage now, this week, not next month.
See a doctor and then keep the appointments, because gaps in treatment get used.
Do not agree to a percentage of fault with anybody before you know what the evidence actually shows.
If the other driver turns out to have no insurance, or not enough of it, the claim moves to your own policy and a different set of deadlines starts running.
If someone has told you the accident was your fault and that you therefore have no claim, that is worth a second opinion before you accept it. The consultation costs nothing and the line is open 24 hours.