8. Contributory Negligence

Celebrated for their conceptual clarity, titles in the Clarendon Law Series offer concise, accessible overviews of major fields of law and legal thought. This chapter discusses the law on contributory negligence. In England, contributory negligence denotes only the negligence of the claimant himself, not that of a third party whose negligence contributes to the occurrence of the harm. Under the Contributory Negligence Act 1945, the claimant's damages are reduced to such extent as the court thinks just and equitable having regard to the claimant's share in the responsibility for the damage. The chapter also deals with contributory negligence as a defence that the defendant must plead and prove. It considers two defences. The first is that the claimant consented to the harmful conduct or accepted the risk of ensuing damage; the second that the claim arose out of illicit conduct on the part of the claimant.