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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.
States with modified comparative negligence rules only allow drivers to claim damages if they are under a set threshold of fault, either 50 percent or 51 percent, depending on the state.
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 .
In the other 45 states in the U.S., plaintiff's recovery is simply diminished by the extent to which they contributed to the harm under principles of comparative negligence, with some states using a mixed model of comparative and contributory negligence. A state with a mixed model may, for example, prevent a plaintiff from recovering damages if ...
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.
Applying the principles of comparative negligence, the jury found that McDonald's was 80 percent responsible for the incident and Liebeck was 20 percent at fault. Though there was a warning on the coffee cup, the jury decided that the warning was neither large enough nor sufficient.
A finding in those states that a defendant's conduct was "wanton," "reckless" or "despicable", rather than merely negligent, can be significant because certain defenses, such as contributory negligence, are often unavailable when such conduct is the cause of the damages.
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.