California doesn’t use the law of contributory negligence. Following an accident, the California Supreme Court decided that contributory negligence was too harsh on accident victims. In 1975, they changed the rules of comparative negligence to make them more fair. There was a law called “contributory negligence,” which meant that people who were hurt could not be financially compensated if they had done anything to contribute to causing their own injuries in any way. While this helped to stop people from suing for personal injuries, it left people who were hurt without money.

What happens when multiple people are at fault for an accident?

In many cases where someone is hurt because of someone else’s carelessness, the person who was hurt is also partly to blame for the accident and ultimately, for his or her injuries. These are called “torts.” The people who did this are called tortfeasors.

Example: Suppose Mary reverses out of the driveway and gets hit by John, who was going too fast. Mary was partly to blame for the accident because she didn’t let John pass before she backed out. However, John’s speed also played a role in the accident because it made the injuries worse. It also made it hard for Mary to figure out how much time she had to safely get out of her driveway.

Courts have come up with two ways to settle cases when there are multiple people who did bad things and one of them is the person who was hurt.

Contributory negligence
Comparative negligence

Contributory negligence explained.

Contributory negligence looks at whether the person who was hurt did something to cause the accident. If the victim did anything to cause the accident, or if their actions made their injuries worse, he or she will not get any money from the person who caused the accident.

This rule is very harsh. I don’t like it, personally. Victims can get hurt very badly and still not get any money from the person who caused the accident, even if they played a small role in it. It doesn’t matter if the judge or jury decides that the victim was only 1% to blame for their injuries. This can mean that the victim won’t get any money for their lost wages or other things. This is even more unfair because their total damages were so high.

Even though the law was very strict, contributory negligence was common until the 1960s. Many states and insurance companies preferred contributory negligence because it kept people from suing for personal injuries. Any victim who could clearly be seen as having played a small role in the accident would not be able to get any money back. This made it pointless to hire a personal injury lawyer and file a claim for an injury because it was not worth the money.

That won’t be the case in 2021, though. Only four states and the District of Columbia will still use contributory negligence to settle personal injury cases where the victim was partly to blame. These states:

Alabama
Maryland
North Carolina
Virginia

Does California follow contributory or comparative fault?

Many other States in the United States changed from contributory negligence rules to comparative fault rules in the 1970s. California was one of these States. Most other states changed when their state legislature passed a law that changed the law in their state. It was different in California, though, because a State Supreme Court made a decision in the case of Li v. Yellow Cab Company, that changed the law.

In this case, there was a car accident in Los Angeles on a major road where many people live. The victim was turning left at a stop light across three lanes of traffic when he was hit by a car. When she was hit by a driver going 30 miles an hour over the speed limit, she was hurt. When he came into the intersection, his traffic light was yellow.

The other driver was speeding and had a duty of care to stop. However, the jury found that the victim was negligent for making a left turn when it wasn’t safe to do so. Under California law, this would keep the plaintiff from getting any money for her injuries.

The California Supreme Court, on the other hand, said that the rules on contributory negligence were outdated and unfair. It changed them to a system where each person can be partially to blame.

What is pure comparative negligence?

Pure comparative fault is a type of comparative negligence law, and it is different from other types. Victims get less money for their injuries under the law of pure comparative fault if they were partly to blame for their own injuries. The defendant has to show that there is a lot of evidence that the victim was partly to blame. Jury members would look at how much negligence each person had, and then assign percentages of blame to each person.

In about a dozen states, pure comparative fault rules are used. These are some of the other states that use this method of distributing fault.

Alaska
Arizona
Florida
New Mexico
New York
Washington

As an example, Mary had a car accident with John and she incurred $200,000 in medical costs, lost wages, and property damage as a result of that accident. Mary would get $140,000 in damages if the jury found that Mary was 30% at fault and John was 70% at fault for the car accident. Conversely, If a jury were to find that Mary was 80% to blame, and John was only 20% to blame, then she would still get $40,000.

Pure comparative fault is not the only type of comparative fault. There is also modified comparative fault. A law called “modified comparative negligence” also reduces how much the victim can get in damages by how much he or she was partly to blame for the accident. However, if the victim was half or more than half to blame, they may not be able to get money back.