Contributory Negligence and Comparative Fault

Now, let's talk about contributory negligence and comparative fault. Both of these doctrines provide a way for the defendant to eliminate or reduce the amount of damages the defendant has to pay, owing to the fact that the plaintiff’s own negligence contributed causally to the occurrence of the plaintiff’s injury.

I. Contributory Negligence

We'll start with contributory negligence. As we will soon see, contributory negligence is a very harsh...