The two words in the title of this blog are often used by insurance companies in personal injury claims; they can be seen as accusatory and are often misunderstood, and many people bringing a claim see them as two very big words.
Contributory Negligence is often used by insurers or Defendants (any person who a claim is brought against) in order to try and reduce the damages that they will have to pay to the innocent victim.
The way it works is that the Defendant will admit that they were at fault for the accident BUT allege that the Claimant (the injured person bringing the claim) was at least partly responsible for their injuries. To clear a common misunderstanding a Defendant cannot use this to say that the accident was the Claimants fault – there is no such thing as 100% Contributory Negligence. In fact the law was altered as long ago as 1945 to stop this happening.
A good example of Contributory Negligence in action is where a passenger gets into a car and fails to put their seatbelt on, and the driver then gets into an accident on their journey with another vehicle which is not his fault. The passenger suffers injuries in the accident which could end up being more severe due to his / her failure to wear a seatbelt. The Defendant driver of the other vehicle is still at fault and will have to pay damages to the passenger but these damages could be reduced by, for example, 25% – 50% as that is the amount that the Claimant has contributed to their own injury by failing to wear a seatbelt.
However, if the medical evidence was to show that even with a seatbelt fastened properly the passenger would still have suffered the same injuries then there could be no reduction for Contributory Negligence as the failure to wear a seatbelt contributed nothing to his claim – case of Stanton v Collinson [2009] EWHC 342 (QB) as an example here.
The gist is – if you could have reasonably prevented the extent of your injuries, you should be expected to suffer a reduction from the payout to reflect this.
It’s not only traffic based situations where Contributory Negligence may apply – if you are injured at work because you ignored rules put in place by your employer a claim could be subject to Contributory Negligence as there is a reasonable chance that by ignoring safety procedure an injury would occur. However, if your employer provides you with equipment or training that wouldn’t have reduced the injury or the risk of injury – against working regulations – in any event or you take a risk that is not obvious to you and it was reasonable for you to take that risk then the rules of Contributory Negligence may not apply.
In any event if you believe that you have a claim for personal injury you should seek expert legal advice as soon as possible, so why wait? – contact The Injury Lawyers now on 0800 634 75 75.
