Personal Injury
In short
New York now has a split rule. Under CPLR 1411(a) a plaintiff's own fault reduces the award in proportion but never bars recovery, which still governs falls, construction accidents and malpractice. Under CPLR 1411(b), added in 2026 for no-fault motor vehicle cases, a plaintiff whose fault is greater than the other side's recovers nothing.
It was, and for most claims it still is. But as of 2026 that answer is no longer true across the board.
Under CPLR 1411(a), a plaintiff’s own fault reduces the award in proportion to that fault and never bars recovery. Someone 99 percent responsible still recovers one percent. That remains the rule for slip and fall cases, construction accidents, medical malpractice and most other negligence claims.
Motor vehicle cases are now different. A 2026 amendment added CPLR 1411(b), which bars recovery entirely in cases governed by the no-fault law where the injured person’s share of the fault is greater than the other side’s. In a car accident, majority fault now means nothing rather than a reduced award.
Almost every published description of New York comparative negligence, including many law firm pages, has not caught up with this.
Part EE of Chapter 58 of the Laws of 2026, enacted with the state budget and signed on 26 May 2026, split CPLR 1411 in two. The old text became subsection (a). The new subsection (b) applies to actions “subject to article fifty-one of the insurance law,” which is New York’s no-fault motor vehicle law.
The same legislation also repealed the 90/180 category from the serious injury threshold and added a cap on non-economic damages for certain at-fault drivers. Taken together it is the most significant change to New York injury law in decades.
| Type of claim | Rule | Does your own fault bar recovery? |
|---|---|---|
| Car, truck or bus collision | 1411(b) | Yes, if your share is greater |
| Pedestrian struck by a vehicle | 1411(b) | Yes, if your share is greater |
| Slip, trip and fall | 1411(a) | No, it only reduces |
| Construction accident | 1411(a) | No, it only reduces |
| Medical malpractice | 1411(a) | No, it only reduces |
| Product liability, dog bite | 1411(a) | No, it only reduces |
Some situations sit on the boundary and have not been decided. A motorcyclist is a notable one: the no-fault law expressly excludes motorcycles from its definition of a motor vehicle, which has always meant motorcyclists escape the serious injury threshold. That same exclusion may well spare them the new fault bar too. No court has ruled on it.
The two regimes are identical until the injured person crosses into majority fault. That is the whole difference.
| Your share of fault | Most claims, under 1411(a) | Motor vehicle, under 1411(b) |
|---|---|---|
| 0% | $1,000,000 | $1,000,000 |
| 25% | $750,000 | $750,000 |
| 49% | $510,000 | $510,000 |
| 50% | $500,000 | $500,000, not barred |
| 51% | $490,000 | Nothing |
| 75% | $250,000 | Nothing |
Note the exact wording. The statute bars recovery where the claimant’s fault is greater than the defendant’s, so a jury that splits fault evenly at 50/50 does not end the case.
Probably yes, and this is the detail most coverage gets wrong.
The amendment applies to all actions commenced on or after 26 May 2026. It keys to the date the lawsuit is filed, not the date of the crash. Because the ordinary deadline for an injury claim is three years, a large number of older accidents fall under the new rule simply because suit has not been filed yet.
A case already pending on that date continues under the old law.
The defendant. CPLR 1412 makes culpable conduct an affirmative defense that must be pleaded in the answer and proved at trial. It was not amended in 2026.
That matters more than it sounds. In Rodriguez v. City of New York, 31 N.Y.3d 312 (2018), the Court of Appeals held that a plaintiff seeking summary judgment on liability “does not bear the double burden of establishing a prima facie case of defendant’s liability and the absence of his or her own comparative fault.” Requiring otherwise, the court said, would flip the burden the Legislature assigned.
An honest caveat: Rodriguez rested on the premise that a plaintiff’s fault can never defeat liability and goes only to damages. In a motor vehicle case under the new rule that premise no longer holds. Whether Rodriguez applies the same way in those cases is an open question that no court has yet answered.
Unsettled, and anyone who tells you otherwise is guessing.
The statute bars recovery where the claimant’s fault is greater than “the person against whom recovery is sought” or greater than “the combined culpable conduct of the persons against whom recovery is sought.” Those two phrases point in different directions when there are multiple defendants.
Read one way, a plaintiff 40 percent at fault loses everything if no single defendant exceeds 40 percent. Read the other way, that plaintiff recovers, because 40 is less than the defendants’ combined 60. The difference is the entire case. No court has resolved it, and the New York State Bar Association has flagged the ambiguity.
It can, but only as to damages, and only if the defense does real work.
Under Spier v. Barker, 35 N.Y.2d 444 (1974), non-use of an available seat belt “should be strictly limited to the jury’s determination of the plaintiff’s damages and should not be considered by the triers of fact in resolving the issue of liability.” It is not negligence in itself.
Critically, the court placed “the burden of pleading and proving that nonuse thereof by the plaintiff resulted in increasing the extent of his injuries and damages” on the defendant. General testimony that seat belts reduce injuries does not satisfy that. Vehicle and Traffic Law 1229-c(8) codifies the same rule.
CPLR 1411 folded assumption of risk into comparative fault, so in most cases it reduces damages rather than defeating the claim. A narrow doctrine survives for athletic and recreational activities, where someone who takes part accepts the risks inherent in the activity.
There is an irony worth noting. Across 2023 to 2025 the Court of Appeals repeatedly declined to expand that doctrine, insisting it “must be carefully circumscribed so as not to undermine the legislative comparative fault regime.” The courts spent three years defending a legislative policy that the Legislature then partly abandoned for motor vehicle cases in 2026.
New York’s rule on joint liability is narrower than people expect. Under CPLR 1601, a defendant found 50 percent or less at fault pays only its own share of non-economic damages such as pain and suffering. Economic damages, meaning medical bills and lost earnings, stay fully joint and several regardless of percentage.
Two exceptions matter here. CPLR 1602(6) removes motor vehicle defendants from that limitation entirely, and 1602(8) does the same for construction Labor Law defendants.
So motor vehicle cases now sit in an odd position: the most favorable rules on collecting from multiple defendants, and the harshest rule on the injured person’s own share of the blame.
Because no court has yet interpreted any part of the 2026 amendment, the honest position is that its edges are unsettled. Anyone stating confidently how the multi-defendant question or the motorcycle question will come out is offering a prediction rather than the law.
Injury actions are heard in Supreme Court, Nassau County, at 100 Supreme Court Drive in Mineola, in the Tenth Judicial District, with appeals to the Appellate Division, Second Department. Nassau’s civil docket is heavily weighted toward motor vehicle and pedestrian cases, which is precisely where the new rule bites.
Related: the serious injury threshold, deadlines for injury claims, and personal injury representation on Long Island.
This guide is general information about New York law, not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Statutes and penalties change, and how the law applies depends on facts no webpage knows. Check the linked primary source, and speak with a lawyer about your own case.
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