## Facts

- Nga Li drove northbound on Alvarado Street in Los Angeles at about 9 p.m. on November 21, 1968, stopped roughly 70 feet before Third Street, and began a left turn across three southbound lanes to enter a service-station driveway.
- Robert Phillips, a Yellow Cab employee, drove southbound on Alvarado, came over a hill crest, entered the intersection at about 30 mph, and struck the right rear of Li’s car.
- The trial court found Phillips’s speed unsafe for the conditions and that he entered the intersection on a yellow signal.
- The trial court found both Li and Phillips negligent and that each party’s negligence contributed to the collision and resulting injuries and property damage.

## Issues

1. Whether California should abandon contributory negligence as a complete bar to recovery and adopt comparative negligence that apportions damages by relative fault.
2. Whether California Civil Code § 1714 precludes judicial replacement of contributory negligence with comparative negligence.
3. If comparative negligence is adopted, whether it should be “pure” or “modified,” and how the change should apply over time.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court reversed the judgment for defendants and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court abrogated contributory negligence as an absolute bar and adopted comparative negligence.
- The court held Civil Code § 1714 did not prevent judicial adoption of comparative negligence.
- The court adopted “pure” comparative negligence, allowing recovery reduced by the plaintiff’s percentage of fault even if the plaintiff’s fault equals or exceeds the defendant’s.
- The court applied the new rule with limited retroactivity: it applied to the parties before the court and to certain cases still pending, but not to final judgments.

## Legal Principles

- In negligence actions, damages should be allocated in proportion to each party’s fault rather than denied entirely due to any contributory negligence by the plaintiff.
- Civil Code § 1714 was construed as not freezing negligence doctrine against further judicial development; courts may modify common-law negligence defenses absent clear legislative direction to the contrary.
- Under pure comparative negligence, a plaintiff’s negligence reduces, but does not bar, recovery in proportion to the plaintiff’s share of responsibility.
- Doctrines that function as complete plaintiff bars based on fault (e.g., last clear chance and fault-based forms of assumption of risk) should not operate independently to create all-or-nothing results; their role is subsumed within comparative fault apportionment.

## Conclusion

The court replaced California’s contributory-negligence bar with a pure comparative-negligence system, held that Civil Code § 1714 did not block judicial reform, and ordered that liability and damages be apportioned according to relative fault, subject to limited retroactive application.


Li v. Yellow Cab Co. of Cal., 13 Cal. 3d 804 (Cal. 1975)