Comparative negligence rules in Arkansas

Getting blamed for a crash you did not cause is one of the fastest ways to lose money on an Arkansas injury claim, and the other driver's insurer knows it. Under Arkansas law the percentage of fault assigned to you directly cuts your recovery, and past one specific line it erases the claim entirely. Here is how the rule actually works in Arkansas and where injured people lose ground.

The 50 percent bar

Arkansas follows modified comparative fault. The governing statute, Ark. Code Ann. § 16-64-122, lets the judge or jury assign a percentage of fault to each party involved in the crash, then reduces the injured person's damages "in proportion to the degree of his or her own fault."¹ If a jury values your case at $100,000 and finds you 20 percent responsible, you collect $80,000.

The hard part is the cutoff. The statute allows recovery only when the fault charged to the person claiming damages is "of a lesser degree than" the fault charged to the party or parties they are suing.¹ Read literally, that means you must be less than 50 percent at fault to recover anything. At an even 50/50 split you are equal, not lesser, so you take nothing. Arkansas sits in the stricter group of modified comparative fault states, where a tie goes to the defense. The distance between 49 percent and 50 percent is the distance between a settlement and zero.

Most crashes never reach a jury, but the rule still controls. Adjusters run the same math when they value a claim, so a letter assigning you a share of fault is really an argument to shrink or deny your payout. That pressure is sharper in Arkansas than in a pure comparative fault state, because the insurer only has to convince you a jury might put you at 50 percent to justify offering nothing.

What counts as "fault," and who decides it

The statute defines fault broadly. It reaches "any act, omission, conduct, risk assumed, breach of warranty, or breach of any legal duty" that is a proximate cause of the damages.¹ That goes past bad driving. Choosing to ride with a driver you knew had been drinking, or ignoring an obvious hazard, can be pitched to the jury as your own share of fault.

Those percentages are set by the fact-finder, not the insurance adjuster. In a jury trial the jurors answer interrogatories that assign a portion of fault to each party, and the Arkansas Model Jury Instructions guide them through the comparison.² Because the numbers drive the entire outcome, most of the real fight in an Arkansas crash case is a fight over percentages, well before anyone argues about how much the injuries are worth.

Several liability and the empty chair

When more than one person caused your crash, Arkansas splits the bill by fault instead of making a single defendant cover the whole thing. The state abolished joint and several liability in the Civil Justice Reform Act of 2003. Under Ark. Code Ann. § 16-55-201, each defendant's liability is "several only" and not joint, and the court multiplies your total damages by that defendant's fault percentage to fix the most you can collect from it.³

There is an Arkansas specific twist that surprises out-of-state insurers. The same 2003 act also tried to let defendants shift blame onto absent people who were never sued. In Johnson v. Rockwell Automation, Inc., 2009 Ark. 241, 308 S.W.3d 135, the Arkansas Supreme Court struck down that nonparty-fault provision, Ark. Code Ann. § 16-55-202, holding that it was a procedural rule that violated separation of powers.⁴⁵ The court kept several liability as a matter of substance but took away the mechanism for putting a nonparty's fault on the verdict form.

The result is a real gap. If two drivers caused your wreck and one is uninsured or never brought into the case, the defendant you did sue generally pays only its own percentage, and there is usually no absent third party on the form to absorb the missing share. That shortfall can land on you unless you carry your own coverage, which is one reason uninsured and underinsured motorist protection matters so much here.

The seat belt rule flipped in 2016

A standard defense move is to argue that you made your own injuries worse. For decades Arkansas blocked one version of that argument. Ark. Code Ann. § 27-37-703 said a person's failure to wear a seat belt could not be admitted as evidence in a civil case.⁶ That protection is gone. In Mendoza v. WIS International, Inc., 2016 Ark. 157, 490 S.W.3d 298, the Arkansas Supreme Court held the statutory bar was procedural and unconstitutional under separation of powers, which makes seat-belt nonuse admissible.⁷ A defendant can now show the jury you were unbelted and argue your injuries would have been lighter if you had buckled. That argument feeds straight into your fault percentage.

Other everyday conduct gets used the same way. Speeding, or handheld texting and social media use behind the wheel, which Arkansas bans for all drivers under Paul's Law at Ark. Code Ann. § 27-51-1504, are routine material for a comparative fault argument.⁸ None of it automatically bars your claim, but each piece is ammunition to push your percentage toward the 50 percent line.

Deadlines and coverage that shape the fault fight

The evidence that wins a percentage fight, like scene photos and witness statements, fades quickly, so the filing deadline matters. Arkansas gives you three years from the date of the crash to file a personal injury lawsuit under Ark. Code Ann. § 16-56-105, and the same three-year window covers vehicle damage claims.⁹ Miss it and the fault analysis never happens, because the case is over. The official Arkansas crash report is usually the first document both sides use to argue fault.

Coverage limits decide whether winning the fault fight gets you paid. Arkansas requires only 25/50/25 in liability coverage, meaning $25,000 per person and $50,000 per crash for injuries plus $25,000 for property damage, under Ark. Code Ann. § 27-22-104.¹⁰ Pair those thin limits with several liability and an at-fault driver can easily owe more than the policy covers. Insurers must offer you uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage under Ark. Code Ann. § 23-89-403, though you can reject it in writing, so it is worth checking whether you did.¹¹ One piece of good news once the percentages are set: Arkansas does not cap compensatory damages in an ordinary car-crash case, because the state constitution bars the legislature from limiting recovery for injury to a person, a rule the Arkansas Supreme Court reaffirmed in Bayer CropScience LP v. Schafer, 2011 Ark. 518.¹²

Because so much rides on the fault percentage, and because Arkansas hands defendants live tools like the seat-belt argument to raise it, the value of a claim here often turns on how well the fault evidence is preserved and presented. If you are weighing your options, you can find an Arkansas attorney to look at how the comparative fault rule applies to your crash. If your vehicle lost resale value after the wreck, that is a separate diminished value claim on top of your injury case.

This is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. Ark. Code Ann. § 16-64-122 (Comparative fault). https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-16/subtitle-5/chapter-64/section-16-64-122/

2. Committee on Model Jury Instructions - Civil, Arkansas Judiciary (Arkansas Model Jury Instructions - Civil). https://arcourts.gov/administration/boards-committees/committee-model-jury-instructions-civil

3. Ark. Code Ann. § 16-55-201 (Modification of joint and several liability). https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-16/subtitle-5/chapter-55/subchapter-2/section-16-55-201/

4. Johnson v. Rockwell Automation, Inc., 2009 Ark. 241, 308 S.W.3d 135. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1574772/johnson-v-rockwell-automation-inc/

5. Ark. Code Ann. § 16-55-202 (Assessing percentage of fault of nonparties; held unconstitutional in Johnson v. Rockwell). https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-16/subtitle-5/chapter-55/subchapter-2/section-16-55-202/

6. Ark. Code Ann. § 27-37-703 (Seat belt use; effect of noncompliance). https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-27/subtitle-3/chapter-37/subchapter-7/section-27-37-703/

7. Mendoza v. WIS International, Inc., 2016 Ark. 157, 490 S.W.3d 298. https://law.justia.com/cases/arkansas/supreme-court/2016/cv-15-677.html

8. Ark. Code Ann. § 27-51-1504 (Paul's Law; handheld texting ban). https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-27/subtitle-4/chapter-51/subchapter-15/section-27-51-1504/

9. Ark. Code Ann. § 16-56-105 (Actions with limitation of three years). https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-16/subtitle-5/chapter-56/subchapter-1/section-16-56-105/

10. Ark. Code Ann. § 27-22-104 (Minimum liability coverage). https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-27/subtitle-2/chapter-22/subchapter-1/section-27-22-104/

11. Ark. Code Ann. § 23-89-403 (Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage). https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-23/subtitle-3/chapter-89/subchapter-4/section-23-89-403/

12. Bayer CropScience LP v. Schafer, 2011 Ark. 518; Ark. Const. art. 5, § 32. https://law.justia.com/cases/arkansas/supreme-court/2011/10-1246-0.html