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Arizona Negligence Law in a Nutshell

The basics of negligence law include the following basic points.

First, for any plaintiff to recover for a defendant’s negligence, the plaintiff must prove the defendant owed a duty of care to the plaintiff, the defendant was negligent and broke that duty of care, and as a result of the defendant’s negligence, the plaintiff suffered an injury. 
The most common example is a car accident. Every driver owes a duty of car to the other drivers on the road.  When a driver violates the law, for example, running a stop sign, and then hits someone, that driver has violated the standard of care.  If that accident causes injuries, then the victim would have a viable negligence claim against the defendant’s driver. 

Phoenix Personal Injury Lawyer Second, Arizona follows the legal concept of comparative fault.  That means the court will reduce a plaintiff’s recovery in proportion to the plaintiff’s fault in causing the injury.  For example, if a Mr. Smith sues Mr. Jones and the jury awards Mr. Smith $1 million, but the jury also says that Mr. Smith was half at fault for the accident, the court will reduce Mr. Smith’s award to $500,000.00.  If the jury thinks Mr. Smith was 75% at fault, Mr. Smith will only get $250,000.00 and so on.  Under comparative fault, a plaintiff can recover even if the plaintiff was more than 50% at fault.  Unlike Arizona, some states follow contributory negligence law, which means that if the defendant is even a little bit at fault, even 1%, that plaintiff does not get anything at all. Fortunately for consumers, only 4 jurisdictions follow this rule.

Third, Arizona follows negligence per se.  That means if the defendant violated an applicable statute, and that violation caused an injury, the defendant automatically is negligent.  For example, if the police cite a defendant driver for running a red light, and that driver caused an accident, then the driver is automatically negligent because the police cited the driver for running the light. Therefore, it always helps a personal injury case when the police cite the defendant driver for violating a traffic statute. 

A couple of significant statutes include ARS 28-701 and ARS 28-730.

ARS 28-701 is the speeding statute.  A driver’s speed must be reasonable and prudent under the circumstances and respecting existing potential hazards.  Driving in excess of the posted speed limit creates a rebuttable presumption that the speed was greater than reasonable and prudent.  The driver must at all times control their speed to avoid a collision.

ARS 28-730 deals with following too closely: the driver of a motor vehicle shall not follow another motor vehicle more closely than is reasonable and prudent and shall have due regard for the speed of the vehicles on, the traffic on, and the condition of the highway.

Finally, most civil actions have a two year statute of limitations, which means you must file a law suit within two years of the accident.  However, any suit against a government entity requires 180 notice of claim, and a dram shop case has only a one year statute of limitations.

If you or a loved one has been hurt, please contact us today to get the help you deserve.
 

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