Can I File a Car Accident Claim if I Wasn’t Wearing a Seat Belt?
Despite being aware of the potential safety risks – and even in spite of state laws requiring the use of seat belts by drivers – many people in Massachusetts fail to buckle up every day. If you happen to get into a car accident while you aren’t wearing a seat belt, this can impact your car accident injury claim. Your failure to wear a seat belt will not, however, prevent you from filing a car accident claim or holding an at-fault driver responsible for your crash.
What Are Massachusetts’ Seat Belt Laws?
According to Massachusetts General Law Section 13A, all individuals over the age of 12 must wear a seat belt when riding in a motor vehicle, regardless of the position of the person in the car. All occupants under the age of 12 must use an appropriate child seat or seat belt based on the child’s height, weight and age. The safety belt must be properly adjusted and fastened, with the lap belt over the person’s upper thighs and the shoulder belt crossing the chest. Breaking Massachusetts’ safety belt or child seat laws can result in a fine of $25 per infraction.
Does Massachusetts Allow for the Seat Belt Defense?
The seat belt defense is an argument that the defendant in a car accident claim should not be held fully liable for the victim’s injuries due to the fact that the victim was breaking state law by not wearing a seat belt. Not all states allow the use of the seat belt defense in a civil claim. Massachusetts permits the seat belt defense to be used only if the victim’s failure to wear a seat belt was causally related to his or her injuries.
This means that if the defense cannot prove a causal relationship between the victim’s injuries and his or her failure to wear a seat belt, this evidence will be insufficient to be submitted to a jury. State law also says that the violation of Massachusetts’ child seat laws is inadmissible as evidence of contributory negligence in any civil action. This means that no driver can be found responsible for injuries to a child in a car accident due to violating the child seat laws.
What Is Massachusetts’ Comparative Negligence Rule in a Car Accident Claim?
The seat belt defense can only do so much to reduce a defendant’s liability for a car accident; after all, the plaintiff’s failure to wear a seat belt did not cause the crash. The defendant can still be held accountable for his or her part in causing the collision, such as from mistakes like speeding, drunk driving or distracted driving. However, the seat belt defense could have the power to diminish a plaintiff’s financial recovery in Massachusetts, depending on the circumstances.
If the defense attorney in your car accident claim can prove with a preponderance of the evidence that your failure to wear a seat belt was the cause of your injuries – or responsible for the severity of your injuries – this could place a percentage of the fault for the injury with you for breaking Massachusetts’ seat belt requirement. Under the state’s comparative negligence rule, this could reduce the amount of financial compensation that you are eligible to collect from the other driver’s insurance company.
Massachusetts uses a modified comparative negligence rule with a cap of 51 percent. This means that as long as your failure to wear a seat belt does not allocate more than 50 percent of the blame for your injuries to you, you can still recover compensation from one or more defendants. However, your recovery will be reduced by your percentage of fault. If the seat belt defense succeeds in placing 15 percent of the fault for your injuries with you, for example, this would reduce a $100,000 award by 15 percent to $85,000.
You can still file a car accident claim if you weren’t wearing a seat belt in Massachusetts. Find out if and when your failure to buckle up could impact the value of your settlement by consulting with a car accident attorney in Lowell.