In a Georgia personal injury case, the injured person’s own share of fault can reduce or bar recovery under the state’s modified comparative negligence rule in O.C.G.A. 51-12-33. The rule ties the amount recovered to the allocation of fault.
Recovery shrinks with the share of fault. Where the injured person bears some fault, the award is reduced in proportion, so a person found ten percent responsible generally keeps ninety percent. The reduction tracks the fault assigned.
Crossing the halfway line ends recovery. The rule draws a hard cutoff: reach fifty percent of the fault and the door to any recovery closes, however serious the injury. That all-or-nothing edge gives the precise percentage outsized weight.
It applies across injury claims. Because the rule governs comparative fault generally, it reaches premises, product, and other claims rather than any single kind. A fall victim’s inattention and a different claimant’s share are weighed by the same measure.
The effect of fault on damages turns on reduction by the share of fault, a threshold that bars recovery, and broad application across claims. Because the precise percentage of fault can mean the difference between a reduced recovery and none at all, the allocation of fault is often as hard-fought as the question of whether the defendant was negligent in the first place.