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Maryland, DC And Virginia Hold Out On Contributory Negligence

For centuries, a key principle in personal injury law was the concept of “contributory negligence.” Essentially, contributory negligence says that if an injured person was in any way responsible for his or her losses, there can be no recovery for damages. Recognizing that this is overly harsh, most states in America have gone to the principle of comparative fault, where the jury looks at the total amount of the loss, allocates a percentage of responsibility, and apportions the cost accordingly. Under the concept of contributory negligence, if you are 1% at fault, you can’t recover anything. With comparative fault, if you are 20% responsible, you are only entitled to 80% of your losses.patient and emergency staff

Among the states still hanging on to contributory negligence—Virginia, Maryland and Washington, DC. But that may be about to change in the District of Columbia. Council members there have been exploring potential legislation to introduce some form of comparative negligence to the nation’s capital.

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