Contributory
Negligence
What It Means If You’re Hurt
Contributory
negligence is a term used to describe a common law defense against
negligence.
Basically, it says that if a person contributes
to an incident through his or her own negligence, even though the
defendant was also negligent, the claim has no merit.
A
overly simplified example would be if an employee had a
box dropped on him/her (injuring him)...but
the employee was
in a restricted area and
not paying attention, the employer may
claim employee negligence as
a possible defense against the injured person’s claim.
Of
course every situation is different and should be handled separately.
This is why companies pay big bucks to hire and retain legal council.
Evolution
- Originally,
contributory negligence was an absolute defense. This meant
that if the defense could successfully prove both parties negligence,
then the claim would be dismissed entirely.
- However, this
allowed defendants to get off the hook entirely even though they were
still partially at fault.
- Since the law’s inception, most
states have now modified it so that proving combination negligence
does not allow for a case to be dismissed entirely.
- Instead,
monetary awards are often based on percentage of negligence.
- For
example, if a defendant successfully proved employer-
employee negligence, the judge or jury may determine that the
contributory
negligence accounted for 25% of the negligence that occurred.
- In this case, the defendant would only have
to pay 75% of the
settlement.
- In Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina,
Alabama,
and Washington DC, contributory negligence is still an absolute defense.
Implications
- Employee negligence can be hard to
prove. Depending on the
jurisdiction, the burden of proof can fall on either the plaintiff or
the defendant.
- Most jurisdictions place the burden of proof
on the defendant. In many cases, the greatest percentage of
negligence will be placed on the individual who had the last clear
chance to avoid the incident.
- If the defendant had the last
clear chance to avoid the incident, then successfully proving shared
negligence on a substantial level can be very difficult.
This negligence occurs only applies when the incident happens
out of negligence by
the defendant. If the incident was a result of deliberate of
malicious intent, then contributory-type negligence is not
applicable.
Many states require that the contributory related
negligence that took place must have played a significant factor in the
resulting incident.
Additionally, especially dangerous
activities can result in the defendant using an “assumption of risk”
defense in combination with negligence.
For
more information regarding employer liability
insurance, such as the contributory
negligence section here, please be sure to check out
the following
areas:
Similar to employer
insurance, employees also have
responsibilities and rights. To learn more about this, check
out the employee
rights section.
And don't forget to check out the various employment
background screening sections, especially if you are
interested in federal
government jobs.
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