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Comparative negligence, called non-absolute contributory negligence outside the United States, is a partial legal defense that reduces the amount of damages that a plaintiff can recover in a negligence-based claim, based upon the degree to which the plaintiff's own negligence contributed to cause the injury.
Comparative responsibility (known as comparative fault in some jurisdictions) is a doctrine of tort law that compares the fault of each party in a lawsuit for a single injury. Comparative responsibility may apply to intentional torts as well as negligence and encompasses the doctrine of comparative negligence .
The doctrine of contributory negligence was dominant in U.S. jurisprudence in the 19th and 20th century. [3] The English case Butterfield v.Forrester is generally recognized as the first appearance, although in this case, the judge held the plaintiff's own negligence undermined their argument that the defendant was the proximate cause of the injury. [3]
The Uniform Comparative Fault Act (UCFA), and its periodic revisions, is one of the Uniform Acts drafted by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) with the intention of harmonizing state laws in force in the states.
The UATRA is meant to be a successor to the Uniform Comparative Fault Act as a way to apportion liability in negligence cases. The UATRA was designed to overcome the low popularity of the Uniform Comparative Fault Act by modifying the usage of joint and several liability among multiple tortfeasors. [1]
The Florida Supreme Court adopted the concept of "pure" comparative negligence, which allows a victim to be compensated for the percentage of harm caused by the at-fault person. The decision of the court in Hoffman v. Jones has been cited in law school textbooks, and now the concept of comparative negligence is the prevailing doctrine.
For example, if a child is injured due to the negligence of a crossing guard employed by a school district, and a court finds the crossing guard to be 99% at fault for the child's injury and the school district to be only 1% at fault, the school district would be liable to pay 100% of the damages.
As a tort reform measure aimed at combatting the perceived unfairness of allowing a party to seek extra-contractual damages where they are primarily at fault, many common law jurisdictions have adopted a "modified" doctrine of comparative negligence in which a party may only recover damages if it bears less than half the liability or if the ...