contributory negligence

1. 1.

   (law) behavior by the plaintiff that contributes to the harm resulting from the defendant's negligence

   “in common law any degree of contributory negligence would bar the plaintiff from collecting damages”

   Broadernegligence

   law

Questions about contributory negligence

What does contributory negligence mean?

contributory negligence means "(law) behavior by the plaintiff that contributes to the harm resulting from the defendant's negligence".

Is contributory negligence a common word?

contributory negligence is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.