§ 23-2 Comparative Negligence - 1 Plaintiff V. 1 Defendant - No Counterclaim

• Library: South Carolina Requests to Charge - Civil (SCBar) (2016 Ed.)

§ 23-2 Comparative Negligence - 1 Plaintiff v. 1 Defendant - No Counterclaim

Comparative negligence is the law in South Carolina. Under the doctrine of comparative negligence, the plaintiff's negligence does not automatically bar recovery unless such negligence exceeds that of the defendant. A plaintiff in a negligence action may recover damages if his negligence is not greater than that of the defendant. The amount of the plaintiff's recovery shall be reduced in proportion to the amount of his negligence.

You, the jury, must apportion fault between the plaintiff and defendant in a negligence action. The plaintiff may recover damages when his negligence is not greater than that of the defendant. The plaintiff's damages, however, are reduced in proportion to the amount of his negligence.

One of the defenses interposed by the defendant is that of comparative negligence. The defendant, by his defense, in essence says this: Even if the jury should find that I was at fault, the plaintiff was more at fault than I was and the fault of each of us combined and concurred with that of the other to act as the proximate cause of the accident and, without which, the accident would not have happened. In other words, it required the fault of each of us for the accident to have happened, but the plaintiff was more at fault than I was.

The plaintiff has the burden of proving the negligence and fault, if any, of a defendant. A defendant has the burden of proving the negligence and fault, if any, of the plaintiff and the degree of such.

Where negligence has been established on the part of both the defendant and the plaintiff, then you must weigh or compare the respective contributions of each person to the occurrence. Considering the conduct of each person involved as a whole, you must determine whether one made a larger contribution than the other.

In making this comparison, the degree of negligence attributable to a party is not to be measured solely by the character thereof, nor solely by the number of respects in which he is found to have been at fault. It is the conduct of a party considered as a whole which must be determined. That is to say, once it has been established that each has been at fault, it is then the jury's function to weigh their respective contributions to the result, which will, regardless of the nature of their acts or omissions, determine who made the larger contribution and to what extent it exceeds or is less than that of the other.

It is the conduct of the parties...