Maine Car Accident Settlements: Dollars, Not Percentages

Nearly every comparative negligence state in the country reduces a claimant’s damages by multiplying against a fault percentage. Maine’s statute expressly forbids that — the jury has to do it in dollars instead.

Quick answer: Maine uses modified comparative negligence under 14 M.R.S. § 156, barred at equal fault — the statute says a claimant “found by the jury to be equally at fault” may not recover, so you need to be under 50%. The genuinely unusual part: the jury must reduce damages “by dollars and cents, and not by percentage,” to whatever extent it finds just and equitable — so a 30% fault finding does not mechanically produce a 30% cut. Maine’s Supreme Judicial Court has held relative fault is “relevant” but “not conclusive” to that reduction. The filing deadline is 6 years, among the longest in the country. Minimum insurance is 50/100/25, well above most states.

The Fault Bar: Equal Fault Loses

Maine applies modified comparative negligence under 14 M.R.S. § 156, and the statutory language on the bar is unambiguous: if the claimant “is found by the jury to be equally at fault, the claimant may not recover.” That places Maine in the 50% bar category — you must be less than 50% at fault to recover anything — alongside Tennessee and Colorado, and not in the more forgiving 51%-bar group where a 50/50 split still pays half.

This is worth stating plainly because a number of secondary sources describe Maine as a “51% bar” state. The statute’s own text contradicts that, and the difference is the entire claim in a genuinely evenly-split case.

Dollars and Cents, Not Percentages

Here is what makes Maine structurally different from essentially every other comparative negligence state covered on this site. 14 M.R.S. § 156 directs the court to instruct the jury in two steps:

1. Find the total damages that would have been recoverable if the claimant had not been at fault.
2. Reduce that total “by dollars and cents, and not by percentage,” to the extent the jury considers just and equitable, having regard to the claimant’s share in the responsibility for the damage.

The second instruction is the unusual one. In a conventional comparative negligence state, once a jury sets the claimant’s fault at 30%, the reduction is arithmetic — $100,000 becomes $70,000, and neither side has discretion about it. Maine hands the jury a discretionary, equitable dollar judgment instead.

“Relevant, But Not Conclusive”

Maine’s Supreme Judicial Court confronted the obvious question — does the liability-phase fault finding control the damages reduction? — in Jackson v. Frederick’s Motor Inn, and answered no. The relative fault of the parties, the court held, “is, of course, a relevant factor which may be considered by the jury in its apportionment of the damages. But it is not conclusive.”

So a 30% fault finding in Maine is an input the jury may weigh, not a multiplier it must apply. The practical effect runs in both directions: a jury might reduce damages by less than strict proportionality would produce, or by more. What the rule removes is the arithmetic certainty a claimant enjoys elsewhere once the percentage is fixed — which undercuts confident settlement modeling for the plaintiff and the defense alike.

An Unusually Long Deadline, and Unusually High Minimums

Two further Maine features stand out against the national pattern:

• A six-year filing deadline — triple the two-year period most states use, and among the longest personal injury limitations periods in the country. This is real breathing room, but not a reason to wait: evidence degrades, witnesses move, and insurers rarely negotiate better late than early.
• 50/100/25 minimum liability insurance — $50,000 per person, $100,000 per accident, $25,000 property damage — roughly double the 25/50 floor most states set, with uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage mandatory at the same limits unless rejected in writing. Maine is an at-fault state with no PIP threshold, and these higher minimums partly compensate for the absence of a first-party no-fault benefit.

Illustrative Maine Settlement Ranges

These ranges assume comparative fault is not seriously contested. Where it is, Maine’s dollars-and-cents reduction makes the outcome harder to model than in a percentage state — the range above cannot be adjusted by simply subtracting a fault percentage.

Deadlines in Maine

Claim	Deadline
Personal injury lawsuit	6 years from the accident
Wrongful death	Generally shorter than the six-year injury period — confirm the specific deadline
Claims against a government entity	Substantially shorter notice periods apply — confirm immediately

Practical Checklist for a Maine Crash

1. Don’t model your claim by multiplying against a fault percentage — Maine’s reduction is a discretionary dollar figure, not an arithmetic operation.
2. Build the record around how your conduct looks in context, since the jury is making an equitable judgment rather than running a calculation.
3. Treat a 50/50 fault split as fatal, not as half a recovery — equal fault bars recovery outright under § 156.
4. Don’t let the six-year deadline encourage delay — it’s unusually generous, but evidence and witness availability aren’t.
5. Check your own declarations page against the 50/100/25 minimum, and confirm whether you rejected UM/UIM coverage in writing.
6. Confirm the deadline that actually applies to your claim type, since wrongful death and government claims run shorter than the general six-year period.

Sources & Further Reading

• 14 M.R.S. § 156 — Maine’s comparative negligence statute: the equal-fault bar, the two-step jury instruction, and the requirement that damages be reduced “by dollars and cents, and not by percentage”
• Jackson v. Frederick’s Motor Inn (Me.) — holding that relative fault is a relevant but not conclusive factor in the jury’s damages apportionment
• See our guides to Tennessee and Colorado car accident settlements for two other states barring recovery at equal fault but applying a conventional proportional reduction, and comparative negligence by state for how these rules compare nationally