Contributory Negligence: Principles and Practice

Despite the centrality of the contributory negligence doctrine in practice, very little is known about how it functions in reality.

Accordingly, this volume's purpose is to describe as clearly and succinctly as possible what discounts have been made for contributory negligence in commonly occurring situations, based on cases decided between 2000 and 2016.

For each of the given recurring acts of contributory negligence, the average discount, the range of discounts, and the distribution of discounts are reported. These statistics are supplemented by way of illustrations drawn from the case law. Short summaries of typical cases for the relevant act of contributory negligence are given, along with summaries of cases that fall towards the higher and lower ends of the range of discounts.

At the moment, judges will often have no way of knowing how judges sitting elsewhere are proceeding in relation to the size of discounts imposed for contributory negligence. This volume will assist lawyers and judges in ensuring that like contributory negligence cases are decided in a like way.