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Sorry all if I'm flooding the boards here--I posted this question in another thread but I think if I make a new post I will get some good answers. I'm probably worrying about too narrow an issue here, but I'm gonna ask anyway.

I have my last exam in Torts tomorrow. I just finished reading "Getting to Maybe" for the second time and something stuck out to me. In the "forks in the law" chapter they pointed out that though comparative negligence is the prevailing mode for assessing liability nowadays, they still recommended including an analysis on how someone might raise contributory negligence as a premise. In my torts class, we have touched on contributory negligence, but my professor is pretty strict about how, in "[our] universe," pure comparative negligence should be used.

So my question is, if I encounter something like this on an issue spotter, should I bother wasting time on "contributory negligence" if it won't be a colorable claim for the purposes of my class?

Hope this wasn't too confusing. Thanks.

I would ask your professor. In a review session my professor just straight up told us that he did not want us to discuss contributory negligence since it is only the rule in four states. That being said, we do need to know how doctrines like assumption of risk or last clear chance are dispensed with or subsumed into modern rules of comparative negligence. I would at least make sure you understand that.

If your professor said that comparative negligence is what you should use, that answers your question. Don't go through the analysis when it's not something he wants. At most, mention it in a short sentence.(Ex. "Contributory negligence doesn't apply here because in the universe of this class, we utilize the majority rule of comparative fault.") But if you have a strict word count, it might not be worth the time and the words.