In accidental injury cases it is relatively common for more than one person to have had a role in causing the accident. As an example, a car strikes a pothole and suffers a blowout. The blowout causes the driver to lose control and then collide with another vehicle. The driver who lost control is obviously at fault, but the driver could also argue that, since the highway department had not repaired the pothole, the highway department is also liable for damages.
Questions of multiple parties at fault are usually decided by a jury which will hear the evidence, determine the total damages to be awarded, and then make an assignment of responsibility based on the jury’s opinion of how much each party contributed to the accident. In our example given in the previous paragraph, a jury could decide that the highway department was 80% responsible for the accident and that the driver was 20% responsible. If the jury awarded damages of $100,000 the highway department would be responsible for $80,000 and the driver would pay $20,000.