Contributory negligence is a term used in the common law of torts to describe the doctrine that a defendant who is guilty of negligence may nevertheless avoid liability if the defendant can prove (or, in some jurisdictions, the plaintiff cannot disprove) that the plaintiff was also negligent, and that the plaintiff's own negligence contributed to the plaintiff's injury.
The exact application of this doctrine varies from one jurisdiction to another. Most jurisdictions have abolished the doctrine altogether, instead adopting a comparative negligence standard that simply reduces the damages to be awarded by an amount reflection the degree to which the plaintiff's negligence contributed to the injury.
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