Failure to Keep a Careful Lookout: How Missouri Comparative Fault Really Works

Short answer: In Missouri, an insurer can’t just say you “should have seen it coming” and knock a percentage off your case. A failure-to-keep-a-careful-lookout argument needs substantial evidence that you could have seen the danger in time to do something about it. On October 27, 2026, the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, threw out a 33% fault finding against a driver for exactly that reason and restored her full $115,000 jury award, which the trial court had cut to $77,050. Missouri uses pure comparative fault, so a fault percentage reduces what you recover. That’s why a lookout argument with no evidence behind it is worth fighting.

Here’s a move we see from insurance adjusters and defense lawyers all the time. The other driver cuts across three lanes and hits you. Liability looks clear. Then the claim file comes back with a line like this: “Claimant failed to keep a careful lookout. We’re assigning 30% comparative fault.”

No witness says you were looking at your phone. No expert says you were speeding. Just the phrase. Because if they can hang 30% on you, they save 30% of the check.

A new Missouri appellate decision shows what happens when that argument has nothing underneath it.

What the court decided in Long v. Saltzman (ED114254)

The case is Angie Long v. Louise F. Saltzman, No. ED114254, decided October 27, 2026, by the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, Division Two. It came up from the Circuit Court of St. Louis County. Here’s what the opinion itself says happened:

• The crash was on August 3, 2017, on Manchester Road. Long sued in November 2019, and the case went to trial in 2025.
• According to the opinion, the defendant was stopped in a U-turn lane, then accelerated to 30 to 35 miles per hour to make a sharp right turn across a solid white line, from the farthest left lane across three lanes of traffic, into a parking lot. She didn’t see Long.
• Long was driving straight in the far right lane at the speed limit. She testified she could see a “fairly long distance” ahead, didn’t see the other car until it was in her lane, and immediately braked and turned right to try to avoid it.
• The trial court let the defense submit a comparative fault instruction based on Long’s alleged “failure to keep a careful lookout.” (It refused the defense’s request to add excessive speed.)
• The jury found total damages of $115,000 and put 67% of the fault on the defendant and 33% on Long. The trial court reduced the judgment to $77,050.

On appeal, the Eastern District held the lookout instruction should never have gone to the jury. There was no evidence Long could or should have seen any sign of danger in time to take evasive action. In the court’s words, the evidence showed “as soon as Long saw Saltzman’s vehicle, she immediately took action to avoid the collision.”

The court reversed the 33% fault finding. It didn’t send the case back for a new trial. Instead, using Missouri Supreme Court Rule 84.14, it entered judgment assessing 100% of the fault to the defendant and awarding Long the full $115,000. Why no new trial? The damages instruction had already told the jury to figure total damages while disregarding any fault of Long’s, and juries are presumed to follow their instructions.

One important caution: as of November 10, 2026, this opinion is very new. Missouri’s appellate rules give the parties time after an opinion is filed to ask for rehearing or to ask that the case be transferred to the Missouri Supreme Court (Rules 84.17, 83.02 and 83.04). If that happens, the result could change. Treat it as a current Eastern District opinion, not the final word, until the time for rehearing and transfer has run and the mandate issues.

The rule: a lookout argument needs evidence, not just a label

Missouri drivers have a duty to keep a careful lookout. Nobody disputes that. But the court laid out a two-part test for when a jury can be told to consider whether a driver failed to do it. Quoting earlier Missouri cases, it said the instruction is proper only if there’s substantial evidence that:

• If the driver had been keeping a careful lookout, she could have seen the danger; and
• Having seen it, she could have taken some precautionary action to avoid the crash, in time for it to matter.

Both parts. Seeing isn’t enough. You also have to have had the time, distance and means to do something about it.

The court leaned hard on Hayes v. Price, 313 S.W.3d 645 (Mo. banc 2010). That’s a Missouri Supreme Court case about a motorcyclist going straight through a green light when a driver turned left in front of him. The Supreme Court said a driver with the right-of-way can assume other drivers will yield until he’s reasonably aware they won’t. Until then, he isn’t required to take evasive action. A lookout instruction against him wasn’t supported by the evidence.

Same idea in Long. You’re driving the speed limit in your own lane. You aren’t required to predict that someone will “gunshot,” as the opinion quotes the testimony, across three lanes into you.

Missouri’s pattern jury instruction for lookout is MAI 17.05, and comparative fault submissions use the same “failure to keep a careful lookout” language. The Long opinion doesn’t cite MAI by number. It focuses on the evidence standard. That standard is what decides whether the phrase ever reaches a jury.

Missouri pure comparative fault, in plain numbers

In ordinary negligence cases, including car, truck and motorcycle crashes, Missouri follows pure comparative fault. The Missouri Supreme Court adopted it in Gustafson v. Benda, 661 S.W.2d 11 (Mo. banc 1983). (You’ll sometimes see RSMo 537.765 cited for this. That statute applies pure comparative fault to products liability claims. For a regular crash case, Gustafson is the source.)

Pure comparative fault means your damages are reduced by your percentage of fault, but you aren’t barred just because you share some blame. Long’s case shows the math:

• Jury’s total damages: $115,000
• 33% assessed to her: the judgment drops to $77,050. That’s $37,950 gone.
• Fault finding reversed: back to $115,000.

That’s the whole game for the insurer. Every point of fault they can stick on you is money they keep. On a bigger case, the dollars get ugly fast.

How insurers use “failure to keep a careful lookout”

It’s a favorite because it’s vague and it sounds reasonable. Who can say they were watching every inch of the road every second? Here’s how it usually shows up:

• In the adjuster’s liability decision. “We accept 70% liability.” Where did the other 30% come from? Usually nowhere specific.
• In the recorded statement. “Did you see the other car before impact?” If you say no, they call it a lookout failure. If you say yes, they ask why you didn’t stop.
• At trial, as a comparative fault instruction, which is exactly what happened in Long.
• Against motorcyclists and pedestrians, where the “you should have seen it” story is easy to tell and hard to disprove without evidence.

Here’s the thing. The question isn’t whether you saw the other car. It’s whether, with a careful lookout, you could have seen a danger in time to avoid it. Those are different questions, and the insurer is betting you don’t know the difference.

What evidence beats a lookout argument

You beat this with proof of time, distance and speed. The Long court relied on testimony and an overhead diagram of the collision. Here’s what tends to matter:

• Your own clear account. Your lane, your speed, when you first saw the other vehicle and what you did right then. Braking and swerving the instant you saw it is evidence that you were paying attention.
• The other driver’s own words. In Long, the defendant’s testimony about where she started, how fast she accelerated and that she never saw Long did a lot of the work.
• Scene diagrams and photos. Lane positions, turn lanes, solid lines, sight lines and where the vehicles ended up.
• Video. Dash cams, business cameras, traffic cameras and doorbell cameras. Get preservation requests out fast, because a lot of systems record over footage on a short loop.
• Vehicle data. Event data recorders can show speed, braking and steering in the seconds before impact.
• Accident reconstruction, when the case justifies it. A reconstructionist can turn speed and distance into seconds, and seconds are what the lookout test turns on.
• Independent witnesses. Get names and phone numbers at the scene if you can.

And be careful what you say in a recorded statement. “I never saw them coming” can get twisted. “They cut across three lanes right in front of me and I braked as soon as they entered my lane” is the truth in a lot of these cases, and it’s a very different sentence.

Illinois is different: the 50% line

If your crash happened in Illinois, the rules change. Illinois uses modified comparative fault under 735 ILCS 5/2-1116. In negligence cases, and in product liability cases based on strict liability, you’re barred from recovering if your fault is more than 50% of the proximate cause of your injury. At 50% or less, your damages are reduced by your share.

So in Illinois, a fault argument can do more than shave your recovery. If an insurer can push your share past 50%, you get nothing. A lookout argument in an Illinois case deserves even more attention for that reason.

Deadlines still apply

A fault fight can drag on, but the filing deadline doesn’t wait. In Missouri, most personal injury claims must be filed within five years (RSMo 516.120), and wrongful death claims within three years (RSMo 537.100). In Illinois, most personal injury claims must be filed within two years (735 ILCS 5/13-202). There are exceptions to all of these, so don’t rely on the general rule for your own case.

If an adjuster has already put a fault percentage on you, ask them what evidence it’s based on. Then talk to a lawyer. You can read more about how we handle these claims on our St. Louis car accident lawyer page, our Missouri car accident lawyer page and our Illinois car accident lawyer page.

Frequently asked questions

What does “failure to keep a careful lookout” mean in Missouri?

It means a driver didn’t watch for other vehicles, people or hazards with the care Missouri requires. The claim is about a failure to see and a failure to act. For it to count against you, there has to be substantial evidence that a careful lookout would have let you see the danger in time to take some action that could have avoided the crash.

Can an insurer reduce my settlement by saying I should have seen the other car?

They can try, and they often do. But under Missouri law, a lookout argument needs evidence that you could have seen the danger in time to react. In Long v. Saltzman (ED114254, Oct. 27, 2026), the Eastern District reversed a 33% fault finding because that evidence wasn’t there.

What happened in Long v. Saltzman?

A St. Louis County jury found $115,000 in damages, but assessed 33% of the fault to the plaintiff for failing to keep a careful lookout, so the trial court cut the judgment to $77,050. The Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, held the lookout instruction wasn’t supported by substantial evidence, reversed the fault finding and entered judgment for the full $115,000. The opinion is new, and rehearing or transfer to the Missouri Supreme Court could still be requested.

Does Missouri use pure comparative fault?

Yes. In ordinary negligence cases, Missouri has used pure comparative fault since Gustafson v. Benda, 661 S.W.2d 11 (Mo. banc 1983). Your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault, but you can still recover even if you share some of the blame. RSMo 537.765 applies pure comparative fault to products liability claims.

What if I was partly at fault for a crash in Illinois?

Illinois uses modified comparative fault under 735 ILCS 5/2-1116. If your fault is more than 50% of the cause, you can’t recover. If it’s 50% or less, your damages are reduced by your percentage.

What evidence helps fight a careful lookout argument?

Evidence about time, distance and speed: your testimony about your lane, speed and reaction, the other driver’s statements, diagrams, photos, video, vehicle event data, independent witnesses and, in some cases, an accident reconstruction. The question is whether you could have seen the danger and avoided it in time, not just whether you saw the other car.

How long do I have to file a car accident claim in Missouri?

Most Missouri personal injury claims must be filed within five years under RSMo 516.120. Wrongful death claims generally have a three-year deadline under RSMo 537.100. Exceptions exist, so get advice about your specific case.