In the 2006 edition of Charlesworth & Percy on Negligence, the authors define contributory negligence as follows:
"(Contributory negligence) applies solely to the conduct of the claimant (plaintiff). It means that there has been some act or omission on the claimant's part which has materially contributed to the damage caused and is of such a nature that it may properly be described as negligence."
In Nance, Justice Simon described contributory negligence as:
"... a sharing of responsibility for damage where a person suffers damage as a result partly of his own fault and partly of the fault of any other person or persons...."
In Pilloni, Justice Davidson of the New South Wales court wrote:
"The term contributory negligence can properly only be applied to a case where both parties, the plaintiff and the defendant, are each guilty of negligence so connected with the injury as to be a cause materially contributing to it."
Examples of contributory negligence as it plays out in a tort action include a plaintiff injured in a motor vehicle accident caused by another but not wearing a seatbelt at the time of collision (Froom), walking across a road without looking for traffic, or the fact that a plaintiff, at the time the damages occured, was under the influence of alcohol (Stinton).
Some jurisdictions do not entirely leave the law of contributory negligence to the whims of judicial assessment. For example, the 2009 version of the British Columbia Negligence Act provides, at §1:
"If by the fault of 2 or more persons damage or loss is caused to one or more of them, the liability to make good the damage or loss is in proportion to the degree to which each person was at fault....
"... if, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, it is not possible to establish different degrees of fault, the liability must be apportioned equally."
French: négligence de la victime.
REFERENCES:
- Duhaime, Lloyd, Legal Definition of Ex Turpi Causa
- Duhaime, Lloyd, Tort & Personal Injury Law
- Duhaime, Lloyd, Tort & Personal Injury Law Dictionary
- Froom v Butcher 1976 QB 286
- Nance v BC Electric Railway Co. 1951 AC 601, at page 612
- Negligence Act, Revised Statutes of British Columbia 1996, Chapter 333. See also the Contributory Negligence Act of Alberta (RSA 2000 Chapter C-27), the Contributory Negligence Act of Saskatchewan (RSS 1978 Chapter C-31) or the Contributory Negligence Act of Nova Scotia (RSNS 1989 Chapter 95)
- Pilloni v Doyle 49 NSWSR 13 (Australia, 1949)
- Stinton v Stinton 1993 PIQR P135
- Walton, Charlesworth & Percy on Negligence, 11th Ed. (London: Sweet & Maxwell, 2006), page 194