Li v. Yellow Cab Co.

"Li v. Yellow Cab Co.", 532 P.2d 1226, 13 Cal.3d 804 (1975), commonly referred to simply as "Li", is a California Supreme Court case that judicially embraced comparative negligence in California tort law, rejecting strict contributory negligence.

Facts of the Case

The case simply featured a traffic accident between the plaintiff and defendant, in which both of them were found to have been driving negligently. Under California law as it existed at the time of the case, this would have prevented any recovery whatsoever to Li, and the California Supreme Court (aware of the recent trend toward comparative rather than contributory negligence) took the opportunity to reconsider the state's tort law on the subject.

Text of section 1714

"Everyone is responsible, not only for the result of his willful acts, but also for an injury occasioned to another by his want of ordinary care or skill in the management of his property or person, except so far as the latter has, willfully or by want of ordinary care, brought the injury upon himself. The extent of liability in such cases is defined by the Title on Compensatory Relief."

Legal Reasoning

The only unique feature of the case is its reasoning regarding section 1714 of the Civil Code, which had been thought to codify the "all-or-nothing" approach to contributory negligence. While the plain meaning of section 1714 was quite clear, the court concluded that the legislature had not meant to stop the process of common-law evolution which is quite normal in state tort law but rather simply to clarify the law as it then existed. This is an extraordinarily common technique of courts that want to continue the process of common-law evolution in the face of a statute set down at one time or another.Fact|date=February 2007

Further reading

* [http://online.ceb.com/calcases/C3/13C3d804.htm Full text of the opinion]