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Understanding Contributory Negligence and How It Can Affect Your Personal Injury Case In Virginia

Most personal injury cases in Virginia are based upon the legal concept of negligence. Negligence occurs when a person, business or organization owes a duty of care to another individual, fails to uphold their duty and the lack of care causes an injury. In basic terms, negligence occurs when someone is careless or fails to ensure that their property is safe for visitors.

The legal theory of negligence is the basis for numerous types of cases. Doctors can be negligent while performing medical procedures or diagnosing illnesses. This form of negligence is often referred to as medical malpractice. Drivers can be negligent while operating their vehicles and cause a collisions that injure other drivers. Storeowners and other businesses and organizations can be negligent if they fail to make their property safe or warn of dangerous conditions, which cause visitors and patrons to become injured.

If you are injured in a car accident, a slip-and-fall or during a medical procedure in the Commonwealth of Virginia, you may wish to pursue a legal claim against the party or parties who are responsible for causing your injury. However, in order to ensure the best possible outcome, plaintiffs in Virginia personal injury cases should be aware that their own actions could have a substantial effect on the amount of compensation that they may be eligible to receive or whether they may be eligible to recieve compensation at all.

In most Virginia personal injury cases, the attorney for the defendant, or the potentially liable party in the case, will claim that the plaintiff was “contributorily negligent”. The concept of contributory negligence means that the plaintiff’s own careless actions caused or contributed to his or her injury. This legal defense can have a substantial impact on the outcome of a personal injury case.

The Supreme Court of Virginia said in The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company v. S.O. Butler, 179 Va. 609 (1942), that “one, who by his own negligence has brought an injury upon himself cannot recover damages for it, and the plaintiff in such cases is entitled to no relief, but where the defendant has been guilty of negligence also in the same connection, the result depends on whether the damage was occasioned entirely by the negligence or improper conduct of the defendant, or whether the plaintiff himself so far contributed to the misfortune by his own negligence or want of ordinary care and caution…”

Essentially, plaintiffs who contribute to their own injuries through careless actions may be barred from recovering compensation from another party who may have also been negligent and potentially played a significant role in causing the injury. This is a rather harsh rule that is only used in a handful of states. Many jurisdictions have switched to the “comparative negligence” rule, which assigns a percentage of fault to each party and reduces compensation awards in accordance with the percentage of fault that was assigned to the plaintiff.

Defendants who wish to use the contributory negligence defense in Virginia personal injury cases are required to prove that the plaintiff did, in fact, contribute to his or her own injury by acting in a negligent or careless manner. Plaintiffs have been found to be contributorily negligent in slip and fall cases where the object that caused the fall was obvious to the plaintiff. The theory behind this defense is that the plaintiff would not have been injured if he or she had used reasonable care and acted in a manner that a reasonable person would have acted.

Plaintiffs can help to protect their personal injury claims by seeking medical treatment promptly following an injury and contacting an experienced Virginia personal injury attorney. A personal injury lawyer in Virginia can assess your case, provide you with guidance on how to proceed with your claim and help you to receive the compensation that you are entitled to.



Michael S. Weisberg, P.C.
112 College Place
Norfolk, VA 23510
Phone: (757) 622-7740
Fax: (757) 533-9223
Toll Free: (800) 690-0235
Email: info@weislaw.com
www.weislaw.com