Immediately after your personal injury accident, you may instinctively think of one person to blame for it. However, as you reflect deeper on the incident, you may realize that several other people contributed negligently. Now, you may be confused about how to assign fault and how this will translate to your legal action. Well, please continue reading to learn what happens if multiple parties are responsible for your injury and how an experienced Parsippany, New Jersey personal injury lawyer at Macri Law Firm can help you approach your claim from here.
What happens if multiple parties are responsible for my injury in New Jersey?
You should know that New Jersey follows a modified comparative negligence system. Here, a plaintiff of a personal injury claim may recover damages, so long as the civil court finds them no more than 50 percent at fault. However, your compensation may be reduced by your percentage of blame. So if you were assigned 20 percent of the liability, you may only receive 80 percent of your claim.
With that, the state also uses a modified several liability system. Using the example above, say a single defendant was found to be 60 percent liable. They may then be held responsible for paying the entire 80 percent of your economic damages, even if a party who is 20 percent liable exists. But if these two defendants are both 40 percent at fault, then they may only be responsible for paying their proportionate share of the damage award.
How can shared liability affect the financial compensation I can recover?
Rest assured, even if multiple defendants are involved in your personal injury claim, the total amount of financial compensation to which you are entitled may remain the same. To reiterate, the only difference here is how these damages will be divided amongst these identified parties. Your priority here should still be to serve the appropriate individuals with your legal action. This is because if one negligent party is left out of it, the present defendant may attempt to shift this unassigned blame onto you. If this takes your liability above the 50 percent threshold, this is when your financial compensation may become completely unrecoverable.
How does the statute of limitations work when suing multiple parties?
With multiple parties involved, your claim may naturally become more complex. This is because a second or subsequent responsible party may not be discovered until later on. But still, the statute of limitations of two years from your personal injury accident date or injury onset may stand. This means if you try to add Defendant B too late, your lawsuit against them may be barred. And without being able to assign a percentage of liability to them, your case against Defendant A may be indirectly weakened, and your chances of compensation may be less likely.
To conclude, sooner rather than later, it is highly advisable to reach out to a skilled Parsippany, New Jersey personal injury lawyer from Macri Law Firm. We look forward to hearing from you.