Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Note:
Last Clear Chance
a rule of law in determining responsibility for damages caused by negligence, which
provides that if the plaintiff (the party suing for damages) is negligent, that will not matter if the
defendant (the party being sued for damages caused by his/her negligence) could have still
avoided the accident by reasonable care in the final moments (no matter how slight) before the
accident. The theory is that although the plaintiff may have been negligent, his/her negligence no
longer was the cause of the accident because the defendant could have prevented the accident.
Most commonly applied to auto accidents, a typical case of last clear chance would be when one
driver drifts over the center line, and this action was noted by an oncoming driver who proceeds
without taking simple evasive action, crashes into the first driver and is thus liable for the
injuries to the first driver who was over the line. In the few states which apply the strict
"contributory negligence" rule which keeps a negligent plaintiff from recovering damages from a
negligent defendant, "last clear chance" can save the careless plaintiff's lawsuit.