What a confusing phrase this is, but in reality, when the phrase is broken down into pieces, it is fairly straight forward and easy to understand.

Typically, in an incident, any incident, there are at least two different parties involved – someone that got hurt, and someone that is being charged with causing the injuries to the one that got hurt.

As you know though, it is never that simple. Unless you are involved in a simple rear-end style accident, there is likely more than just two parties involved in your accident.

For example, you could be in a multi car pileup, or you could have slipped on a water spill in a fast-food restaurant at a mall. In those two examples, there is clearly just one party, you, that got injured, and there is clearly more than one party that cause you to be injured – in the car pileup there are all of the drivers involved that did not cause the accident and in the slip and fall incident, there is the restaurant and there is the mall itself.

Now, lets expand the above example to throw in a non-party at fault and then break it apart to see how this phrase actually works to understand:

In the auto accident say it is a three-car accident and you are the first car and you sue the third car, but in reality you were actually rear-ended by two cars, the third car and the middle car when it was rear-ended by the third car. In this example, if you only sued the third car for the accident, the middle car is now a non-party at fault.

In the slip and fall accident say a separate company that is not controlled by either the restaurant or the mall is hired to conduct janitorial services at the mall. If you sue the restaurant and the mall for the incident, the janitorial company is now a non-party at fault.

With the above new facts, what can be determined to help to define what the phrase “non-party at fault” actually means in simple terms. Put simply, “non-party” means the new third party being discussed or brought into the accident or lawsuit someway is some party that actually caused or could have caused the accident, i.e. they are “at fault” some way. I hope that this macro example can help to clear up some confusion of this phrase that I see thrown around sometimes and if you ever have any questions, please feel free to send them my way and I will try to answer them to the best of my abilities.

Also, as always, please remember – Although I am an attorney, I’m not your attorney and therefore am not giving you legal advise in this blog. This blog is for information and educational purposes only. This blog should not be taken as legal advise or used as a substitute for such.