In a few medical malpractice cases, the defendant might claim that a person is at least partly responsible for bringing about his or her own injuries by, for instance, being unsuccessful in following the physician’s directions. If an individual goes to trial and is discovered to be somewhat responsible, that judgment will decrease or even remove his or her damage reward, conditional on state law.
California adheres to a pure comparative negligence rule. As a result, a determination must be made as to the amount of accountability the patient assumes for his or her medical malpractice injury. The patient’s limited accountability for the injury will not forbid the patient from recuperating against healthcare provider. The fraction of the patient’s responsibility amounts to the fraction of compensation that the patient will be forbidden from recuperating. For instance, if a person’s physician is thirty percent liable for his or her medical malpractice injury and the person is seventy percent liable, the person will recuperate thirty percent of the overall compensation arising from the injury.
