Negligence: Old School v. New School

My friend was irate. She felt such behaviour was a disgusting money grab. While at one point in my life I might have agreed with her, after one semester in law school I was able to see the other side of the coin.

My friend worked at a doctor’s office and had recently had a patient who was suing a car manufacturer for injuries sustained during an accident. This patient claimed that the seatbelt design was defective and contributed to her injuries. Sounds like a pretty basic claim of design defect, right? So what is my friend getting all worked up about? Well it turns out this car accident was at least partially this patient’s own fault. She had gone out drinking with a few friends and, while intoxicated, they had gotten into the car and started to drive home. They were the cause of the accident in which this patient was injured, so my friend was shocked that this patient had the chutzpah to now turn around and sue the car manufacturer for an injury her own actions caused.

I, on the other hand, immediately recalled something we had learned in Torts class this past semester. Traditionally, when one’s own negligence contributes to the injuries, the other negligent party is completely off the hook. Even if the injured party’s negligence only contributed to the injury 5%, the offending party walks away scot free. This is called contributory negligence. But more and more courts nowadays have moved away from this strict system and have adopted what we now call a comparative negligence system. This takes the injured party’s negligence into account in assessing the damage award, but it does not completely bar any action against the negligent party.

The old school has a very good argument: if not for the injured party’s negligence, the damage would not have occurred, so why should they have the ability to collect for an injury that was their own fault?? At the same time, the more modern comparative negligence system also has its benefits. Firstly, it incentivizes people and companies to take the utmost care to avoid injuring anyone. Secondly, if not for the for the negligence of the offending party, this injury would not have occurred either, so why should they walk away free of charge?

There are arguments for both sides, but thankfully (for lawyers at least!), the courts allow more and more negligence cases in.