Contributory negligence

• Contributory negligence

  • The Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Act 1945 provides that any damages awarded to the claimant can be reduced according to the extent or level to which the claimants had contributed to their own harm.
  • this means that both the defendant and the claimant are each partly to blame for the injury suffered by the claimant - amount of blame will be decided by the judge
• CN:

  • The judgement will first set the full amount of the damages as if there was no contributory negligence
  • The judge will then decide the percentage that the claimant is responsible and then reduce the full amount by this percentage
  • It has to be appreciated that this is a defence and it will only result in a reduction of the amount of damages
• Sawyers v Harlow Urban District Council (1958)

  • A woman was trapped in a public toilet when door lock became jammed and she was injured as holder gave away
  • Damages reduced if claimant has partly caused her own injuries
• Jayes v IMI (Kynoch) Ltd (1985)

  • claimant lost a finger at work while cleaning a machine with the guard off
  • claimant was found to be 100% contributory negligent as he admitted his fault in taking the guard off
• O’ Connell v Jackson (1972)

  • damages reduced by 15% when the rider of a moped was injured and suffered greater injuries because he was not wearing a crash helmet
• Froom v Butcher (1976)

  • The driver of a car suffered greater injuries then would’ve been the case if wearing a seatbelt
  • His damages were reduced by 20%
• Stinton v Stinton (1993)

  • damages reduced by one third for accepting a lift from a drunk driver and claimant knew that driver was over limit
• Badger v Ministry of Defence (2005)

  • C died of lung cancer the defendant admitted a breach of statutory duty by exposing the C to asbestos dust But claimant had smoked cigarettes
  • As claimant was aware of the risk from cigarettes from 1971 court reduced damages by 20%