On February 11, Associate Policy Director Sarah Sample testified before the Judiciary Committee in opposition to HB 466 – Civil Actions – Motor Vehicle Accidents Involving Vulnerable Individuals – Comparative Negligence.
The bill would create a new comparative fault standard in Maryland and upend the state’s well-established and carefully balanced contributory negligence standard, without any corresponding adjustments to other components of Maryland’s longstanding balanced approach to tort claims.
This legislation would upend Maryland’s longstanding contributory negligence standard with a comparative fault system without adjusting other key components of the State’s balanced tort framework. This change would increase litigation costs and complexity, strain court and local government resources, and ultimately shift greater financial burdens onto taxpayers while disrupting a system that currently balances fair recovery with fiscal responsibility.
The proposed shift to comparative negligence, especially in the
absence of any changes to the other portions of Maryland’s current balanced system, would likely cause the number of claims to increase, give life to previously meritless or frivolous claims, and cause these cases to take longer and become more difficult to resolve.
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