Pennsylvania Comparative Negligence & Limited Tort FAQ

Pennsylvania follows modified comparative negligence with a 51 percent bar, codified at 42 Pa. C.S. § 7102. If you are partly responsible for your own injuries, your recovery is reduced in proportion to your share of fault. If a jury values your damages at a given amount and finds you thirty percent responsible, you recover seventy percent. But if the jury finds your fault greater than that of the defendant or defendants combined — more than 51 percent — you recover nothing. The allocation is made by the jury on a verdict slip, and in multi-defendant cases the jury apportions fault among each defendant as well as the plaintiff.

Yes, as long as your share of the fault does not exceed 51 percent. This is the single most common reason people never call a lawyer, and it costs them. Partial fault is normal — you may have been slightly over the speed limit, you may not have been in a crosswalk, you may not have been wearing a seatbelt. None of those facts ends a Pennsylvania claim. They become a percentage argument. What matters is who proves what. Insurers assign fault percentages unilaterally and early, and those numbers frequently do not survive an accident reconstruction, a scene inspection, or the defendant's own deposition testimony.

Ultimately a jury, if the case is tried. Before that point, an insurance adjuster assigns a working percentage based on the police report and their own review, and it is essentially an opening negotiating position. The police report matters but it is not binding — the officer typically arrives after the crash, does not reconstruct it, and sometimes records only one driver's account. In litigation we counter with physical evidence: vehicle event data recorder downloads, crush and damage analysis, sight-line and timing studies, roadway and signal data, surveillance video, and cell phone records showing distraction by the other driver. Fault percentages move when evidence replaces assumption.

They are separate rules that both reduce recoveries, and people conflate them constantly. Comparative negligence under 42 Pa. C.S. § 7102 is about responsibility for the accident and it reduces all categories of damages proportionally. Limited tort under 75 Pa. C.S. § 1705 is about your insurance election and it restricts only non-economic damages — pain, suffering, and loss of life's pleasures — unless a statutory exception applies or the injury constitutes a serious impairment of a body function. A limited tort plaintiff who was twenty percent at fault faces both: the threshold question on pain and suffering, and a twenty percent reduction on whatever is recoverable.

No. Limited tort never affects economic damages — medical bills, lost wages, and out-of-pocket costs remain fully recoverable. It conditions non-economic damages on a threshold, and Pennsylvania courts assess serious impairment of a body function by looking at the nature and extent of the impairment, the treatment required, its duration, residual limitation, and prognosis. That is ordinarily a jury question, not an adjuster's call. Several exceptions in § 1705(d) remove the restriction entirely: a DUI conviction or ARD acceptance by the at-fault driver under § 1705(d)(1)(i), an at-fault vehicle registered out of state, an uninsured at-fault driver, intentional conduct, and injuries suffered while not occupying a private passenger motor vehicle under § 1705(d)(3).

No. Under 75 Pa. C.S. § 1705(d)(3), the limited tort restriction does not apply to a person injured while not occupying a private passenger motor vehicle. Motorcyclists, bicyclists, and pedestrians therefore recover non-economic damages without clearing the serious-impairment threshold, even where the household policy elected limited tort. This surprises injured riders regularly, usually because an adjuster told them otherwise. Motorcycles also are not required to carry first-party medical benefits coverage in Pennsylvania, which changes how treatment gets paid during the case and affects lien exposure at the end of it. Both issues should be sorted out early, not at settlement.

Pennsylvania's seatbelt statute, 75 Pa. C.S. § 4581, limits the use of non-use evidence in civil cases, so a defendant generally cannot argue to a jury that your failure to buckle up should reduce your damages. Helmet use is a different analysis. Pennsylvania does not require helmets for most experienced adult riders under 75 Pa. C.S. § 3525, and non-use is not negligence per se, but defendants still try to raise it in relation to head injury causation. These are contested evidentiary issues, and they are exactly why an injured rider should not concede anything to an adjuster on a recorded call.

The jury apportions a percentage to each party, including you. How the money is then collected depends on the allocation. Under Pennsylvania's Fair Share Act at 42 Pa. C.S. § 7102(a.1), a defendant is generally liable only for its own percentage share, with joint and several liability preserved in specified circumstances — including where a defendant is found 60 percent or more liable, and in cases involving intentional misrepresentation, intentional torts, releases of hazardous substances, and certain liquor-liability claims. That is why identifying every responsible party early matters so much. Each additional defendant is another share of the verdict and another insurance policy.

Systematically, and usually within the first two weeks. The adjuster requests a recorded statement and asks questions engineered to produce admissions — whether you saw the other car, whether you could have braked sooner, whether you were tired. They lean on an ambiguous police report. They assign a fault percentage in the first offer and present it as fixed. They send a broad medical authorization to hunt for pre-existing conditions to blame. My advice is consistent: do not give a recorded statement to the other driver's insurer, do not sign a blanket authorization, and do not accept a fault percentage as settled. It is an opening position, and it moves when evidence contradicts it.

Look at your policy declarations page, where the election appears under a heading like Tort Option or Tort Election. If you cannot locate it, ask your agent or the carrier to send the declarations page and the signed election form in writing. Do not rely on what an adjuster says over the phone. I have handled cases where a carrier described a policy as limited tort and the signed form said otherwise, and the written election is what controls. Changing from limited to full tort going forward takes a single call to your agent, and in my view it is the least expensive meaningful upgrade on a Pennsylvania auto policy.