Proportionate Fault

Proportionate Fault in Maritime Law

Note: There is more information on maritime/admiralty law here.

The following is a definition of Proportionate Fault, produced by Tetley, in the context of admiralty law: The rule for apportioning damages in tort/delict, whereby each party whose fault or negligence has contributed to the total loss or damage is held liable for that loss or damage in a proportion corresponding to that party’s fault or negligence. Proportionate fault is the system of apportionment of damages recognized historically by the civil law and later codified in the various civil codes. At common law, however, proportionate (comparative) fault only replaced the old common law contributory negligence (see this maritime law term in this legal dictionary) rule (which precluded any recovery by a plaintiff whose fault or negligence had contributed to his loss or damage in even the slightest degree) when the United Kingdom enacted the Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Act, 1945, 8 & 9 Geo. 6, c. 28, although several Canadian common law provinces had enacted similar legislation some twenty years earlier. In maritime law, proportionate fault replaced the traditional equally divided damages (see this maritime law term in this legal dictionary) rule of apportionment for ship collision when the United Kingdom, Canada and other British Commonwealth countries enacted national statutes giving effect to the Collision Convention 1910 (see this maritime law term in this legal dictionary). In the United States, proportionate fault in ship collisions was imposed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Reliable Transfer Co. 421 U.S. 397, 1975 AMC 541, [1975] 2 Lloyd’s Rep. 286 (1975). In Canadian maritime law, proportionate fault replaced contributory negligence in respect of maritime torts other than ship collisions pursuant to the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Bow Valley Husky (Bermuda) Ltd. v. Saint John Shipbuilding Ltd. [1997] 3 S.C.R. 1210, (1997) 153 D.L.R.(4th) 385. See Tetley, Int’l. C. of L., 1994 at pp. 478-489; Tetley, M.L.C., 2 Ed., 1998 at pp. 49-50; Tetley, Int’l. M. & A. L., 2003 at pp. 222, 228-241.

Proportionate Fault in Admiralty Law

For information on proportionate fault in this context, see the entry on proportionate fault in the maritime law encyclopedia.