Re Contributory Negligence

NC is one of only 4 states that continue to have a "contributory negligence" civil statute. That means that , if you in any way contribute to your own injuries in an accident or whatever, you can't sue the other party for damages.

Now, I don't know if that discourages injury suits from fights in which a beat up party could not maybe collect because he made an offensive remark to a "friend", but it surely does apply to auto accidents where insurance companies are always involved. It cuts down on insurance costs and of course the insurance industry has always supported this kind of thing.

There has been on exception that I know of that was written into the law: If you aren't wearing a seat belt and received injuries exclusively due to negligence on the part of another, you COULD sue. That's an interesting exception. You have to argue that you would have contributed to your injuries if you were not wearing a seat belt except in maybe some extremely rare situations. Such an exception shows just how poorly constructed is a law such as this in general. You could imagine many more such innocent contributions to injury than seat belts in which a person could not collect under the law.

NC is about to change that law. They're adding some other political tradeoffs at the same time such as requiring multiple people who have responsibility to have to bear proportional responsibility rather than to go after the most wealthy in the bunch...also a good change.

Contributory negligence laws are a good example of how money influences politics. Fair examinations of the rate of return for political contributions to politicians shows more than a 20,000% rate of return. It is legal bribery and the public has to begin to throw its weight behind demands for good government. There is a sea change about to happen, I feel sure and I'm happy to be a part of seeing it come into being.