Contributory negligence shall not bar recovery in an action by any person or his legal representative to recover damages for negligence resulting in death or injury to person or property, if such negligence was not greater than the negligence of the person against whom recovery is sought or was not greater than the combined negligence of the persons against whom recovery is sought. Any damages sustained shall be diminished by the percentage sustained of negligence attributable to the person recovering.
N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2A:15-5.1
Contributory negligence; elimination as bar to recovery; comparative negligence to determine damages
Known as the Punitive Damages Act
The act spans §§ 2–2 (79 sections).
Applied in 18 court decisions — leading case Hilen v. Hays (1984)
Most recently applied in 83 F. Supp. 3d 420 - Bullock v. Caesars Entertainment Corp. (January 2015)
L.1973, c. 146, s. 1
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Current official text: New Jersey Legislature. Digitized from the New Jersey Legislature bulk statutes download. Reproduced from public-domain New Jersey statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.