Posted in Blog
You know what happened in a car crash. But the other driver has a different version of events. It’s one of the most frustrating situations you can find yourself in after a car accident, and unfortunately it’s not uncommon. In New Hampshire, a disputed liability claim can significantly affect your ability to recover fair compensation.
The good news is that disputed fault doesn’t mean that your claim is dead in the water. It just means that more evidence and stronger advocacy may be required.
Why Drivers Dispute Fault
Sometimes disputes are genuine. Accidents happen fast, visibility is limited, and two people can experience the same collision from very different perspectives. Other times the dispute is strategic. Drivers know that admitting fault creates financial exposure, and their insurer has every incentive to support a version of events that minimizes or eliminates their liability.
Either way, your claim doesn’t rise or fall on what the other driver says. It rises or falls on evidence.
New Hampshire’s 51 Percent Rule Raises the Stakes
New Hampshire follows a modified comparative fault system. If you’re found more than 50 percent responsible for the accident, you recover nothing. See RSA 507:7-d. If you’re found partially at fault but under that threshold, your compensation gets reduced by your percentage of responsibility. Id.
That rule gives insurance companies an incentive to try and push fault onto you. Even arguing your fault percentage up to 30 or 40 percent can meaningfully reduce what they have to pay. Disputing your account of the accident is a common financial strategy for insurance carriers.
What Strengthens Your Position
When fault is contested, the quality and consistency of your evidence becomes extremely important. A few things that can make a big difference:
- The police report: Responding officers document observations, road conditions, and sometimes issue citations. A favorable determination of fault or citation to the other driver is powerful ammunition, though not conclusive on its own.
- Witness statements: Independent witnesses with no stake in the outcome carry significant credibility. Get names and contact information at the scene if you’re able to.
- Photographs and video: Scene photos, vehicle damage patterns, and any available surveillance or dashcam footage can contradict a false account far more effectively than testimony alone.
- Physical evidence: Skid marks, point of impact, and vehicle damage locations tell a story about how the collision actually happened, often more reliably than either driver’s account. For complex cases, an accident reconstruction expert witness may be required.
- Cell phone records: If distracted driving contributed to the crash, phone records can establish whether the other driver was using their device at the time of impact.
Connecting with a Keene car accident lawyer early means someone is working to preserve and organize that evidence before it disappears or becomes harder to access.
What Not to Do
A few mistakes that consistently hurt disputed fault cases:
Don’t give a recorded statement to the other driver’s insurance company without speaking to an attorney first. Adjusters are skilled at asking questions in ways that produce answers useful to their side. Once a statement is recorded, it’s difficult to walk back.
Don’t post about the accident on social media. Insurers may monitor claimant accounts, and even an innocent post can be taken out of context to support a fault argument or to depress the value of your claim.
Don’t wait too long to act. Witness memories fade, surveillance footage gets overwritten, and physical evidence at the scene changes. The sooner your attorney gets involved, the better.
Getting Help With a Disputed Claim
Car accident cases require an experienced advocate and a systematic approach to evidence. Welts, White, & Fontaine, P.C. has represented injured New Hampshire drivers in disputed fault cases for decades, building liability arguments that hold up when the other side pushes back.
If the other driver is pointing the finger at you and you know that’s not the full story, speaking with a Keene car accident lawyer is the right next step.