Reams Law

If you have been in a car accident in Oklahoma that was not your fault, you might assume the insurance companies will simply review the evidence, agree on who caused the crash, and pay what is owed. Unfortunately, that is rarely how it works. Because of the way Oklahoma law now allocates responsibility for a collision, insurance companies — including, at times, your own — have a powerful financial incentive to argue that everyone involved shares at least some of the blame. Understanding why that happens, and what your rights are, can be the difference between a denied claim and a fair recovery.

From “Joint and Several” to “Several Only”: A Shift in Oklahoma Law

For much of the twentieth century, Oklahoma followed a doctrine known as joint and several liability. Under that rule, when two or more parties caused a single, indivisible injury, an injured person could collect the entire amount of their damages from any one of the responsible parties — even a defendant who was only partly to blame. The theory was that an innocent victim should not go uncompensated simply because one wrongdoer could not pay; the wrongdoers, not the victim, should be left to sort out who ultimately owed what.

Over the last several decades, Oklahoma moved steadily away from that approach. The Legislature codified comparative negligence — the principle that each person’s recovery is measured against their own share of fault — by statute (23 O.S. § 13), operative in 1979. Then, through a series of tort-reform measures culminating in a 2011 amendment, Oklahoma eliminated joint and several liability for most fault-based cases. Today, 23 O.S. § 15 provides that in a civil action based on fault and not arising out of contract, “the liability for damages caused by two or more persons shall be several only and a joint tortfeasor shall be liable only for the amount of damages allocated to that tortfeasor.” That rule applies to claims accruing on or after November 1, 2011, with a narrow exception preserved for actions brought by or on behalf of the State.

The practical effect is significant. Each at-fault party is now responsible only for its own percentage of the harm. If a jury decides one driver was seventy percent responsible and another thirty percent responsible, each pays only its slice — there is no longer any shifting of the whole bill onto whichever defendant has the deepest pockets or the best insurance. That change may sound like an abstract matter of legal theory, but it reshaped the economics of every car accident claim in the state, and it is precisely why the fight over percentages of fault has become so intense.

How Comparative Fault Works After a Two-Car Accident

Oklahoma uses what lawyers call a modified comparative negligence standard. Two rules work together to determine what an injured driver can recover.

First, your damages are reduced by your own percentage of fault. Under 23 O.S. § 14, if you are found partly responsible, “the amount of the recovery shall be diminished in proportion to” your share of the negligence. If your total damages are $100,000 and you are found twenty percent at fault, you can recover $80,000.

Second — and this is the “modified” part — there is a cutoff. Under 23 O.S. § 13, you are barred from recovering anything if your negligence is “of greater degree than” the negligence of the party (or the combined negligence of the parties) that caused your injury. In plain terms: if you are fifty percent or less at fault, you can still recover a reduced amount; if you are found more than fifty percent at fault, you recover nothing.

Consider a straightforward example. Suppose Driver A is stopped at a red light and Driver B, distracted by a phone, rear-ends Driver A. If Driver A is entirely blameless, Driver A is zero percent at fault and Driver B is one hundred percent at fault, and Driver A should recover the full amount of proven damages. Now change the facts so they are murkier: two drivers approach an intersection, each claims the other ran a stale yellow light, and they collide in the middle. A jury might assign the fault sixty-forty, seventy-thirty, or fifty-fifty. Where that line falls matters enormously. A driver found fifty percent at fault recovers half of their damages; a driver found fifty-one percent at fault recovers nothing at all. Because a single percentage point can erase an entire claim, every party — and especially every insurer — has an incentive to push each driver’s number as high as possible.

Why Insurers Try to Spread the Blame — Even to Drivers Who Were Not at Fault

Put the two doctrines together and the strategy comes into focus. Because liability is now several only, an insurer pays only for its own insured’s allocated share of fault. Because comparative negligence reduces or eliminates a claim as the claimant’s own percentage rises, every point of fault an insurer can pin on you is money it does not have to pay — and if it can push you past the fifty percent line, it pays nothing.

That incentive does not disappear just because the evidence is one-sided. Even when the police report, the physical damage, and the witness statements all point to the other driver, it is common for insurers to assert that the not-at-fault driver was speeding, was inattentive, could have avoided the collision, or otherwise contributed “somehow” to the crash. The goal is not necessarily to prove you caused the accident; it is to manufacture enough doubt to justify assigning you a percentage of fault so the company can discount your claim or deny it outright. Adjusters are trained to look for any fact that supports shifting responsibility, and a recorded statement — or even an offhand apology at the scene — can be used against you later.

This dynamic can surface where you would least expect it: your own insurance company. When you carry coverage such as collision, uninsured or underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) benefits, or medical payments (MedPay) coverage, your insurer may owe money directly to you. And because paying you costs the company, it can have its own reason to characterize you as partly at fault in order to reduce or deny what it pays under your policy.

Your Rights When You Are Not the One at Fault

If you were not at fault, Oklahoma law is on your side — but you have to be prepared to prove it. A driver who did not cause a collision generally has the right to recover the full measure of damages the law allows, including property damage, medical expenses, lost wages, and compensation for pain and suffering. Fault is a question of fact, decided on the evidence. An insurer’s opinion about your percentage of fault is not the final word; it is a negotiating position. Physical evidence, photographs, the vehicles’ damage patterns, event-data-recorder (“black box”) information, traffic-camera or dash-camera footage, independent witnesses, and accident-reconstruction analysis can all rebut an unfounded attempt to shift blame.

You are also not required to accept a lowball offer or a denial at face value. You have the right to dispute the insurer’s fault determination, to decline to give a recorded statement to the other driver’s insurer, to be represented by counsel, and — if the matter cannot be resolved fairly — to file a lawsuit against the at-fault driver and let a jury decide the allocation of fault. Because Oklahoma law places strict time limits on these claims, those rights can be lost if you wait too long to assert them.

When Your Own Insurer Turns on You: Insurance Bad Faith

There is an important additional protection for drivers whose own insurance company tries to blame them in order to avoid paying a valid claim. In Oklahoma, an insurer owes its policyholder a duty to act in good faith and to deal fairly. The Oklahoma Supreme Court recognized this in Christian v. American Home Assurance Co., 1977 OK 141, holding that an insurer’s breach of its duty of good faith and fair dealing is an actionable tort — commonly called “insurance bad faith.”

What that means in practice is that your relationship with your own insurer is not merely contractual. If your insurer unreasonably denies or delays a claim it should pay, exaggerates or invents your fault to cut its payout, fails to conduct a proper investigation, or otherwise treats your interests with reckless disregard, it may be liable not only for the benefits owed under the policy but also for the additional harm caused by its bad-faith conduct — and, in appropriate cases, punitive damages. So a not-at-fault driver whose own carrier tries to pin blame on them may have two distinct claims: a claim against the other driver (and that driver’s insurer) for causing the collision, and a separate bad-faith claim against their own insurance company for how it handled the claim.

It is worth emphasizing that not every claim denial amounts to bad faith. An insurer is entitled to investigate and to dispute a claim where there is a legitimate, reasonable basis to do so. The line between a good-faith dispute and actionable bad faith is highly fact-specific, which is one more reason to have a knowledgeable advocate evaluate exactly what happened.

Why It Is So Important to Talk to an Attorney

Because Oklahoma’s system turns on percentages of fault, the early handling of a claim can determine its outcome. Insurers begin building their fault case immediately — often before an injured person has even finished medical treatment. An experienced attorney can level the playing field by preserving and gathering the evidence that establishes who was actually responsible, communicating with the adjusters so your words are not twisted into an admission, documenting the full extent of your damages, and pushing back against inflated or invented allegations of comparative fault. If your own insurer is acting in bad faith, an attorney can identify that misconduct and pursue the additional remedies the law provides.

You do not have to accept an insurance company’s version of who was at fault, and you should not have to fight two insurers — the other driver’s and your own — by yourself. If you have been injured in a crash you did not cause, and an insurance company is trying to blame you anyway, the sooner you get advice, the better your chances of protecting your claim.

Talk to Reams Law

If you were injured in a car accident in Oklahoma and an insurance company is trying to shift the blame onto you, contact Reams Law for a consultation. Call 405-285-6878, or contact us here. There is no substitute for having someone on your side who understands how Oklahoma’s comparative fault system really works.

This article is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice, nor does it create an attorney-client relationship. Laws change and every case is different; you should consult a licensed Oklahoma attorney about your specific situation. This communication may be considered attorney advertising.