Contributory Negligence In Personal Injury Law

When the topic at hand is personal injury law in the country of Canada, it’s crucial to mention a thing or two about its legislation system. The main thing to know is that apart from the governmental statutes which are enacted, the country allows the provinces to have their own legislative provisions. This means that Sudbury, which is located in the state of Ontario, is going to be subjected to the provisions of the province, instead of the statutory ones. This is of course only possible when the former do not contradict to the latter. The main idea behind this is to allow people who are closer to the problems to come up with solutions. The system is logical and working.

When it comes to personal injury law, negligent behavior is definitely one of the first things that pop into mind. The liability of the perpetrator is definitely the next thing. It is important to know that the liability of the defender is to the extent of the damages. This means that the defendant would be required to pay no more than the expenses that the victim had to do and the amount of non-pecuniary damages awarded by the court, provided they have been claimed at all. This solution is fair because no one should receive more than what he has actually suffered from. The contrary would give grounds for serious legal abuse.

However, there are also other things that limit the liability of the perpetrator and one such thing is called contributory negligence. Now, it is true that in most of the cases the negligent party is going to be the defendant but there are also a lot of times in which the victim himself has contributed for the accidents. For instance if you are walking your dog and a person starts to willingly taunt and aggravate him and your dog bites him, the institute of contributory negligence is definitely going to be used. This would require the judge to provide the victim with compensation when he takes into proper account the extent to which the victim acted negligently.

This solution is also incredibly fair because it somehow limits the responsibility of the defendant in events in which he wasn’t the only cause for the accident. This also suggests that everyone, including the victims should be held accountable for their own negligence. In this event the punishment for the negligent victim is going to be the reduced compensation award. However, it’s also possible that the accident happened entirely because of the negligence of the victim. If this is the case it is only logical that he would be required to pay for his own expenses and damages.