Crashes in Center City are rarely clean in the way people hope. One driver rolls through a light. The other was looking at a phone. A pedestrian stepped off the curb a little late. Pennsylvania does not treat a little shared fault as a complete loss, but it does draw a hard line once your share exceeds the other side’s share.
The rule lives in section 7102 of Title 42, under the heading comparative negligence. It is the statute a Philadelphia jury is given when fault is disputed, and it is the statute insurers argue about in settlement talks long before anyone sees a courtroom.
The recovery line
Section 7102(a) says that in an action to recover damages for negligence resulting in death or injury to person or property, the fact that the plaintiff may have been guilty of contributory negligence shall not prevent a recovery where such negligence was not greater than the causal negligence of the defendant or defendants against whom recovery is sought. Any damages shall be diminished in proportion to the amount of negligence attributed to the plaintiff.
Read that twice. If each side is assigned half the fault, your negligence is not greater than the other driver’s, so you may still recover, reduced by your 50 percent share. If you are 51 percent at fault, your negligence is greater, and the statute says that fact cuts off a recovery against that defendant. People call this a 51 percent cutoff. The statute itself uses the words “not greater than.”
How the reduction works when you can still recover
Suppose a jury finds $100,000 in damages and assigns you 20 percent of the causal negligence and the other driver 80 percent. Your recovery is diminished by 20 percent. The other driver’s share, and whether anyone else is on the verdict sheet, is the next question, covered below.
The comparison is to the defendant or defendants against whom recovery is sought. How that sentence plays out when there are several defendants, or a settled party, is a reason to have a lawyer apply the statute to the facts rather than to do the math on the back of an envelope.
Several liability, and the 60 percent exception
Section 7102(a.1) governs what happens when more than one person is liable. Each defendant is liable for the proportion of the entire dollar amount awarded that matches that defendant’s percentage of liability. A defendant’s liability shall be several and not joint, and the court shall enter a separate and several judgment for the apportioned amount, except in the situations named in paragraph (3).
One of those situations comes up often enough to mention here. A defendant’s liability is joint and several where the defendant has been held liable for not less than 60 percent of the liability apportioned to all parties. In that case the court enters a joint and several judgment for the entire dollar amount awarded. If that defendant pays more than a proportionate share, the defendant may recover contribution from defendants who have paid less than their share.
Joint and several liability also applies to an intentional tort, intentional misrepresentation, and two statutory settings named in the section, one under the Hazardous Sites Cleanup Act and one under a Liquor Code provision. A crash case is usually a negligence case, so the 60 percent threshold is the exception most drivers will hear about.
People who settled, and other persons on the verdict sheet
Section 7102(a.2) allows the question of liability of a person who settled with the plaintiff, and who is not a party, to be sent to the trier of fact for apportionment, upon appropriate requests and proofs. The details of that subsection are technical. The practical point is that a settlement with one driver or company can still affect how a jury divides fault among those who remain.
How this interacts with limited tort and with a government defendant
Comparative negligence is about fault shares. It does not replace the limited-tort election in section 1705. You can be only slightly at fault and still be blocked from pain-and-suffering damages if you elected limited tort and the injury is not a serious injury. Our limited tort guide covers that rule.
If the defendant is a government unit, immunity, the six-month statement in section 5522, and the damages caps in section 8528 or section 8553 all apply as well. Fault percentages do not erase those limits. Our government notice guide explains the extra steps.
What to do with a fault dispute
Philadelphia crash reports, photographs of the intersection, traffic-signal timing, and witness names can matter when percentages are close to the line. The report itself is not admissible as evidence in a damages action, under section 3751, but the investigation still helps you understand what the officer wrote. Our report guide shows how to request a copy.
Do not accept a first offer that treats you as mostly at fault without reading the facts against section 7102. A few percentage points on either side of 50 can be the difference between a reduced recovery and no recovery at all. A Pennsylvania injury lawyer can evaluate that question from the file, not from a slogan.
Photographs of the cars, the lane markings and any turn signal, taken as soon as it is safe to do so, often help later when memories differ. So do the names of people who stopped. Fault close to the 50 percent line is not a place to rely on a single conversation with an adjuster.