Contributory Negligence and Comparative Fault

Transcript

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 he has to pay, owing to the fact that the plaintiff’s own negligence contributed causally to the occurrence of her injury.

I. Contributory Negligence

We'll start with contributory negligence. As we will soon see, contributory negligence is a very harsh doctrine, so much so that most jurisdictions have done away with it...