Scribd
Upload
33 views1 page

Understanding Contributory Negligence

Contributory negligence is a legal defense that can be used when a plaintiff's own negligence contributed to their injury from an accident. If a motorist hits a pedestrian crossing the street illegally without checking for traffic, the motorist could claim contributory negligence to argue that the pedestrian contributed to their own injury by crossing unsafely. Contributory negligence prevents a plaintiff from collecting damages if their own actions helped cause the accident. It examines who had the last clear chance to avoid the accident and excuses a plaintiff's negligence only if the defendant failed to take that final opportunity to prevent injury. In short, contributory negligence means negligence is caused by both the plaintiff and defendant in an accident.

Uploaded by

Genelle Mae Madrigal
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
33 views1 page

Understanding Contributory Negligence

Contributory negligence is a legal defense that can be used when a plaintiff's own negligence contributed to their injury from an accident. If a motorist hits a pedestrian crossing the street illegally without checking for traffic, the motorist could claim contributory negligence to argue that the pedestrian contributed to their own injury by crossing unsafely. Contributory negligence prevents a plaintiff from collecting damages if their own actions helped cause the accident. It examines who had the last clear chance to avoid the accident and excuses a plaintiff's negligence only if the defendant failed to take that final opportunity to prevent injury. In short, contributory negligence means negligence is caused by both the plaintiff and defendant in an accident.

Uploaded by

Genelle Mae Madrigal
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

GENELLE MAE A.

MADRIGAL
School of Law
Legal Research

CONTRIBUTORY NEGLIGENCE

If you cause an accident that injures someone crossing the street because of driving too fast, then
you can be sued of negligence. What is meant by negligence? It is defined as the failure to observe for the
protection of the interests of another person that degree of care, precaution, and vigilance which the
circumstances justly demand, whereby such other person suffers injury. It simply means that negligence
is failure to exercise the required amount of care to prevent injury to others. If you are negligent, and your
negligence causes another person to become injured, then you are legally responsible for paying damages.

Who was at fault? If you’re a motorist and strikes a pedestrian who was crossing the street
without carefully checking traffic warning of the do-not-cross sign of the nearby streetlight. The injured
party files a negligence claim, the defendant may then assert a contributory negligence claim against the
plaintiff stating that the injury is the result of the plaintiff's own actions. This would be a contributory
negligence counterclaim. In this case the plaintiff contributed to his injury so he is prevented from
collecting any damages. A pedestrian must exercise reasonable care for his or her own safety. The care
required must be proportionate to the danger to be avoided and reasonably anticipated consequences.

The concept of contributory negligence is used to characterize conduct that creates an


unreasonable risk to one's self. The idea is that an individual has a duty to act as a reasonable person.
When a person does not act this way and injury occurs, that person may be held entirely or partially
responsible for the resulting injury, even though another party was involved in the accident. One historic
limitation has been to examine the context of an accident to determine who had the last clear chance to
avoid its occurrence, and to excuse a plaintiff's contributory negligence where the defendant is found to
have had and to have failed to exercise that last clear chance. To keep it simple, contributory negligence is
negligence that is caused by both plaintiff and defendant.

You might also like