Comparative negligence rules in Connecticut

After a Connecticut crash, one of the first questions an insurer asks is how much of the wreck was your fault. The answer decides whether you collect anything at all, and how much. Connecticut logged 103,489 reported crashes in 2025 alone,¹ and in most of them fault isn't a clean 100/0 split. The state handles mixed-fault cases under a rule called modified comparative negligence, written into Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-572h.²

Here's the short version, and then the parts that catch people off guard.

The 50 percent line that decides your case

Under § 52-572h(b), your own carelessness "shall not bar recovery" as long as your negligence "was not greater than the combined negligence" of the people you're suing.² Read that carefully. It's a comparison between your share of fault and the combined share of everyone you seek to recover from, not a driver-by-driver contest. If your slice is 50 percent or less, you still recover. The moment it tips to 51 percent, you get nothing.

When you do recover, the award drops by your own percentage. Section 52-572h(b) says the damages "shall be diminished in the proportion of the percentage of negligence attributable to the person recovering."² A $200,000 injury with the jury putting 30 percent of the blame on you becomes $140,000. At 50 percent it's $100,000. At 51 percent it's zero. That single point of fault, from 50 to 51, is the most expensive line in Connecticut injury law.

It wasn't always this forgiving

Connecticut used to follow pure contributory negligence, where being even one percent at fault wiped out your claim entirely. The legislature scrapped that with Public Act 73-622 in 1973, the act that created § 52-572h and put the modern comparative rule in place.² So the "you can be half at fault and still recover" standard is the product of a deliberate 1970s reform, not old common law.

Each driver pays only their share

Multi-car wrecks are where Connecticut's rule gets its own flavor. For crashes on or after October 1, 1987, § 52-572h(c) makes each defendant liable "only for such party's proportionate share" of your damages.² Connecticut abolished old-style joint and several liability for negligence. If a jury finds one driver 60 percent responsible and another 20 percent, the 20 percent driver pays 20 percent of the bill, not the whole thing with a right to chase the other driver later.

The math is spelled out. Section 52-572h(f) requires the jury to state, in relation to 100 percent, the percentage of fault for each party including you.² Subsection (d) then multiplies your recoverable damages by each defendant's percentage to fix what they owe.² There's one safety valve. Under § 52-572h(g), if a liable defendant turns out to be broke and can't pay, you can move to reopen the judgment within a year and have the court reallocate that uncollectible share among the other defendants.² Outside that narrow reallocation, the shares don't shift.

The driver you didn't sue can still take a percentage

Because fault gets sliced by percentage, defendants have a strong incentive to point at someone else, even a driver who isn't in your lawsuit. Connecticut lets them. Under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-102b, a defendant can serve an "apportionment complaint" to pull a non-party into the case purely so a share of blame can be assigned to them, and that complaint has to be served within 120 days of the return date on your original complaint.³ Do everything right on your side and you can still watch a chunk of fault get parked on an empty chair.

Settlements work the same way. Section 52-572h(n) says that when you release one party, your total award is reduced by that released person's percentage of negligence.² Settle cheaply with one driver and you can't recover their share from the others.

What comparative negligence doesn't touch

The rule has hard limits, and they can work in your favor. Section 52-572h(o) blocks any apportionment of fault between negligence and conduct that's "intentional, wanton or reckless," or based on strict liability.² Your ordinary carelessness, say a rolling stop, doesn't get weighed against a drunk or reckless driver's misconduct the way it would against another merely negligent driver. Connecticut backs that up with teeth. Under § 14-295, if you specifically plead that the other driver acted deliberately or with reckless disregard in breaking the DUI, speeding, or reckless-driving statutes, and that it was a substantial factor in the crash, the jury may award double or treble damages.⁴

Two old defenses are also gone. Section 52-572h(l) abolishes both last clear chance and assumption of risk in these cases,² so an insurer can't argue you "assumed the risk" of the road to zero out your claim. And under § 52-572h(m), the family car doctrine can't be used to pin comparative negligence on a vehicle's owner who wasn't driving.²

Vehicle-damage and product claims run on their own tracks

The comparative reduction applies to property damage too, not just injuries, because § 52-572h covers "damage to property" in the same breath.² If your car's value took a hit, that claim (see our Connecticut diminished value guide) gets trimmed by your fault percentage the same way an injury award does.

Product and defect claims are the exception. If a defective tire or airbag contributed, Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-572o controls, and it's pure comparative: your responsibility "shall not bar recovery but shall diminish the award of compensatory damages proportionately," with no 51 percent cutoff.⁵ Product cases also keep the old joint and several liability rule that ordinary negligence claims lost,⁵ so those defendants can be on the hook for the full net award. Different statute, different math.

The deadline that ends the argument

None of this matters if you're too late. Connecticut gives you two years from the date the injury is discovered or reasonably should have been discovered, with an absolute outer limit of three years from the crash itself, under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-584.⁶ Blow that deadline and no comparative-fault argument ever gets made, because the case is over before it starts.

A practical order of operations helps. Pull the official crash report early (how to get a Connecticut crash report); the police diagram and any citations feed straight into the fault percentages a jury later assigns. Connecticut's own numbers show how routine mixed-fault wrecks are, with 1,737 crashes logged in March 2026 alone.⁷ And because Connecticut is an at-fault, pure-tort state, having repealed no-fault in 1994,⁸ with liability minimums of just 25/50/25,⁹ the fault split can decide whether a thin policy even covers your losses. That's worth talking through with a lawyer (find a Connecticut attorney).

This is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. thatcarhitme.com, Connecticut (Statewide) Crash Report, 2025. https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/connecticut/statewide/2025-annual-report

2. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-572h, Negligence actions. Doctrines applicable. Liability of multiple tortfeasors for damages. https://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_925.htm#sec_52-572h

3. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-102b, Addition of person as defendant for apportionment of liability purposes. https://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_898.htm#sec_52-102b

4. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 14-295, Double or treble damages for personal injury or property damage resulting from certain traffic violations. https://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_248.htm#sec_14-295

5. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-572o, Comparative responsibility (product liability claims). https://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_925.htm#sec_52-572o

6. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-584, Limitation of action for injury to person or property caused by negligence. https://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_926.htm#sec_52-584

7. thatcarhitme.com, Connecticut (Statewide) Crash Report, March 2026. https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/connecticut/statewide/march-2026-report

8. Connecticut Public Act 93-297 (1993), An Act Concerning Automobile Insurance Reform, repealed the state no-fault law effective January 1, 1994. https://www.cga.ct.gov/ps93/Act/pa/1993PA-00297-R00HB-05176-PA.htm

9. Connecticut Insurance Department, Auto Insurance (minimum liability limits, citing Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 14-112(a), 38a-371). https://portal.ct.gov/cid/consumer-information-center/auto-insurance