Four systems, and Alaska sits at one extreme
American fault law splits into four real categories: pure comparative negligence, modified comparative negligence with a 50% bar, modified comparative negligence with a 51% bar, and pure contributory negligence. Alaska sits at the most forgiving end of that spectrum — pure comparative negligence — while a small handful of states, including Alabama, sit at the opposite, strictest end.
Pure comparative negligence: Alaska's rule
Under AS §§ 09.17.060 and 09.17.080, an injured person's own fault reduces their recovery by their exact percentage of fault, with absolutely no cutoff point. A claimant found 80% at fault still recovers the remaining 20% of their damages. There's no threshold anywhere in the system where the claimant's own fault suddenly eliminates the claim entirely — it simply keeps shrinking the recovery as the fault percentage climbs, all the way up to 99%.
Modified comparative negligence: a threshold Alaska doesn't have
Most US states instead use a modified version: recovery is allowed, reduced by the claimant's fault percentage, but only up to a point. Once the claimant's fault reaches 50% (in some states) or 51% (in others), recovery is barred completely. Alaska has no equivalent threshold built into its rule at all — the proportional reduction simply continues regardless of how high the claimant's own share of fault climbs.
Contributory negligence: the opposite extreme
At the far other end sit the five contributory negligence jurisdictions — Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, and the District of Columbia — where any fault at all on the claimant's part, even 1%, can bar recovery completely. Alaska's rule produces the exact opposite outcome in the same scenario: a claimant 1% at fault in Alaska still recovers 99% of their damages, while the same claimant would recover nothing at all in one of those five jurisdictions.
A rule the courts wrote before the legislature did
Alaska's path to pure comparative negligence has a genuinely distinctive history. The Alaska Supreme Court established the pure comparative fault standard directly, through its decision in Kaatz v. State, 540 P.2d 1037 (Alaska 1975) — roughly a decade before the state legislature formally adopted the Uniform Comparative Fault Act and wrote essentially the same rule into statute. See our guide to the other states using pure comparative negligence for where Alaska's approach fits among its peers nationally.