Colorado uses a modified comparative negligence system, meaning you can still recover money even if you were partly at fault, as long as you’re less than 51 percent at fault under C.R.S. § 13-21-111. Your payout gets reduced by your own percentage of fault. If a jury decides you were 25 percent responsible for a $50,000 award, you’d walk away with $37,500, not the full amount.
How fault actually gets decided
Fault comes down to four things: whether the other driver had a duty to drive safely, whether they broke that duty, whether that break caused the crash, and whether the crash caused your damages. Police reports, witness statements, photos, and dash cam footage all get used to answer those questions.
Why insurers fight over fault percentages
Every point of fault they can shift onto you is money they don’t have to pay. This is exactly why intersection crashes and multi-vehicle pileups get contentious, there’s real financial incentive for the other side to argue you share the blame.
What to do next
If this is where you are right now, call Mile High Legal at (720) 853-5779 for a free consultation. We handle Colorado car accident and injury claims on contingency, meaning you pay nothing upfront and nothing at all unless we recover money for you.
