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Comparative and Contributory Negligence

Rules that decide what happens to a claim when the injured person was also partly careless - and they differ sharply from state to state.

Informational only - this is not legal advice. These definitions explain general legal vocabulary in plain English. They are not advice about your situation, reading them creates no attorney-client relationship, and the law differs from state to state and changes over time. For advice you can rely on, speak to a lawyer licensed in your state.

What it means

These are the rules that answer a very common question: what if the injured person was partly at fault too? States answer it in three broadly different ways, and which answer applies is a matter of where the case is brought rather than what happened.

Under pure comparative rules, an injured person's recovery is reduced by their own share of the fault, however large that share is. Under modified comparative rules, recovery is reduced the same way but disappears entirely once the injured person's share crosses a threshold. Under contributory negligence rules, which only a small number of jurisdictions still follow, any fault at all on the injured person's part can bar the claim completely.

The practical effect is that the same accident, with the same facts and the same share of blame, can be worth a reduced amount in one state and nothing at all in another.

Where this comes from

This is state law and there is no national rule. Which of the three approaches applies - and, for modified comparative states, where the cut-off sits - is set by each state's own statutes and court decisions.

When people hire a lawyer for this

This is worth asking a lawyer about early, because it is the doctrine most likely to make a claim worth far less than it first appears - or worth nothing. An insurer's first argument is very often that the injured person was partly responsible, and how much that argument matters depends entirely on which of the three rules the state follows.

Find a lawyer for this in your state

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Part of the LawyerLand plain-English legal glossary. Definitions are written from primary sources - statutes and court rules - and each entry states the authority it rests on, or says plainly when the doctrine is state law with no national rule.

If you cannot afford a lawyer, civil legal aid programmes provide free help with many of these problems: civil legal aid programmes by state.