Not a formula — a standard
Under 14 M.R.S. § 156, most comparative negligence states apply a straightforward rule: a claimant's fault percentage becomes the exact percentage their damages get reduced by. Maine's statute instead asks the jury to reduce damages "to such extent as the jury thinks just and equitable having regard to the claimant's share in the responsibility for the damage." That's a standard for the jury to apply, not a formula handed to it — a genuinely different structure than nearly every comparative negligence statute elsewhere in the country.
The 49/50 line is still absolute, discretion or not
It's worth being clear about what this discretion does, and doesn't, change. The bar itself — recovery barred entirely at 50% fault or more — is not discretionary at all; it's a hard, binary line regardless of how the jury feels about the equities. The discretion only comes into play below that line, in deciding exactly how much of a reduction is "just and equitable" once a claimant's fault has been found to be under 50%.
Where the underlying fault argument still comes from
The building blocks of a fault argument in Maine are familiar: the narrative section of the police report, any recorded statement taken from the claimant, witness accounts, photos or video of the scene and vehicle positions, and any inconsistencies in how the incident has been described over time. That evidence still matters just as much in Maine — it's simply feeding into a jury's broader judgment rather than directly multiplying against the damages total.
Why this can make Maine negotiations harder to pin down
Because the final reduction below 50% isn't purely mechanical, settlement negotiations in Maine can be genuinely harder to anchor to a precise number than in a state with a strict percentage rule. Two parties might agree a claimant was roughly 30% at fault and still reasonably disagree about what a Maine jury would consider "just and equitable" given that finding, adding a layer of real uncertainty beyond the percentage itself.
Who ultimately decides
If a case goes to trial, the jury decides both the fault percentage and, within its discretion, how much of a reduction is appropriate. In the far more common scenario of a negotiated settlement, the parties are essentially trying to predict how a jury would exercise that same discretion. See our Maine comparative negligence calculator for a straightforward proportional estimate to use as a starting reference point.