Missouri does not bar an injured driver from recovering just because they share some blame for the crash. It reduces the recovery by the percentage of fault assigned, which is a very different rule, and insurers routinely use the wrong version of it against you.
Updated October 2026
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Missouri follows a rule called pure comparative fault, adopted by the Missouri Supreme Court in 1983. It replaced an older rule that could bar an injured person from recovering anything if they were even slightly at fault. Under comparative fault, your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault instead of eliminated by it.
That distinction sounds technical, and insurers rely on most people never learning it. This article covers how the percentage actually gets decided, who has the authority to decide it, and the tactics adjusters use to push your share higher than the evidence supports.
An insurer stating a fault percentage on a phone call is not the same thing as a fault percentage being true.
Your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault, with no cutoff that bars you entirely. A driver found 60% at fault can still recover the other 40% of their damages. Some other states cut off recovery entirely once a plaintiff's fault passes 50%. Missouri does not.
An adjuster who states a fault percentage early in a call is stating a negotiating position, not a legal determination. The actual percentage is decided from evidence: the police report, dashcam or traffic camera footage, vehicle data recorders, witness statements, and, where needed, an accident reconstruction expert.
Adjusters look for anything that can be framed as your contribution: speed, following distance, a delayed brake response, distraction, or even a pre-existing condition reframed as the real cause of your injury rather than the crash. Any of these can be used to argue a fault percentage that the underlying evidence does not actually support.
When liability is not seriously contested, the case is mostly about damages. When fault itself is disputed, the physical evidence that establishes what actually happened — skid marks, debris fields, vehicle damage, video — degrades or disappears within days. Early investigation shapes the fault percentage the case eventually settles on.
An active grandmother was T-boned and left with permanent chronic neck pain. The insurer did not dispute that the other driver caused the crash. It looked for another reason to pay less anyway, suggesting her age explained the injury, and offered $14,937.
A jury disagreed. It returned $2.5 million.
This was not a comparative-fault case, but it is the same tactic in its clearest form: when an insurer cannot deny it caused the crash, it looks for another reason to pay less. In a genuine fault dispute, that reason is a percentage instead of an age comment, and it deserves exactly the same skepticism.
Past results do not guarantee a future outcome, and every case depends on its own facts. These are public-record results that show what trial-prepared representation can produce.
An active grandmother was left with permanent chronic neck pain. The insurer blamed her age and offered $14,937. The jury returned $2.5 million. Read full story →
A red light runner. Multiple disc replacements, a lower back fusion, and blood clots. A St. Louis County jury returned $10,000,000. Read full story →
Defense offered $0 and blamed the mother for her son's death. After five days of trial, a St. Charles County jury delivered $20,025,000. Read full story →
The insurance company said the wrist fracture had healed. A unanimous jury disagreed in 15 minutes, at more than 10 times the last offer. Read full story →
Officers sometimes get the sequence of events wrong, and a mistaken narrative in the report can shape everything that follows if it goes unchallenged.
Photograph the vehicles and scene, request any nearby business or traffic camera footage quickly, and do not have a damaged vehicle repaired or scrapped until it has been documented.
An adjuster's early number is a starting position for negotiation, not a finding. Treat it that way rather than as a fact you have to argue down from.
Gaps in treatment or vague descriptions in the medical record give an insurer more room to argue that something other than the crash explains your condition.
Once you accept a percentage, whether by settling or by what you say to the insurer, it is difficult to walk it back later.
It is the rule that reduces, rather than eliminates, an injured person's recovery based on their percentage of fault for a crash. If a jury finds you 20% at fault and your damages are $100,000, you recover $80,000. Missouri has followed this rule since the Missouri Supreme Court's 1983 decision in Gustafson v. Benda.
Generally yes. Missouri's pure comparative fault rule allows recovery even if you were mostly at fault, reduced by your percentage of responsibility. There is no threshold, such as 50% or 51%, above which your recovery is barred entirely, which is not true in every state.
Missouri is a pure comparative fault state. Some states use a modified rule that bars recovery once a plaintiff's fault reaches a certain threshold, commonly 50% or 51%. Missouri has no such cutoff, so a plaintiff found more than half at fault can still recover their remaining percentage of damages.
Ultimately a jury, if the case goes to trial, based on the evidence presented. Before that, the percentage is a subject of negotiation between the parties and their insurers, informed by the police report, physical evidence, witness statements, and, in disputed cases, an accident reconstruction expert.
An insurer can say that, but saying it does not make it true. It is a negotiating position, and adjusters frequently open with a fault percentage that the evidence does not support. The way to test it is with the same evidence a court would rely on: the police report, video, and reconstruction if needed.
Yes, directly. A fault percentage assigned to you is applied to your total damages before a settlement figure is reached, so a disputed 20% versus 40% fault allocation can change a settlement by tens of thousands of dollars or more depending on the size of the claim.
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