Bill
HB 969
HB 969 orders a legislative study to evaluate replacing North Carolina’s contributory negligence with a comparative framework and recommend the best option.
Status & Sponsors
- Bill number: HB 969
- Short title: Study the Abolition of Contributory Negligence
- Filed: November 12, 2024
- Primary sponsors: Representatives Longest and Blust (and others listed)
- Status: Passed first reading (read 1st time March 6, 2025); referred to State Affairs
Purpose / Intent
- HB 969 does not itself change the negligence rule. Instead, it directs the Legislative Research Commission (LRC) to study whether North Carolina should abolish the doctrine of contributory negligence and, if so, what replacement negligence framework would be most appropriate.
Key Provisions
- Directs the LRC to conduct a comprehensive study of abolishing contributory negligence. Required study tasks include:
1. Assess whether abolishing contributory negligence would improve measurable outcomes for citizens.
2. Determine whether keeping contributory negligence currently harms citizens and identify primary harms.
3. Evaluate fiscal impacts of adopting a new negligence framework, including effects on individuals, consumers, businesses, insurers, and other relevant sectors.
4. Recommend which negligence framework would be most beneficial for the State, explicitly considering both modified comparative negligence and pure comparative negligence.
- Requires the LRC to submit a report (including any legislative recommendations) to the 2026 Regular Session of the 2025 General Assembly upon its convening.
- Effective immediately upon becoming law.
Background — what contributory negligence means
- Under contributory negligence (the rule currently in a minority of U.S. jurisdictions), a plaintiff who is at fault to any degree is barred from recovering damages. Comparative negligence systems instead apportion fault and reduce recovery by the plaintiff’s percentage of fault (pure comparative allows recovery regardless of plaintiff fault percentage; modified comparative bars recovery above a threshold such as 50% or 51%).
Who would be affected by a change (if adopted)
- Plaintiffs and defendants in tort cases, attorneys, insurers (premiums, underwriting, reserves), businesses (liability exposure), courts (caseloads, jury instructions), and state fiscal budgets (through insurance market changes and possible litigation volume shifts).
Timeline / Process
- LRC conducts the study and must report its findings and recommendations to the legislature for the 2026 Regular Session. Any statutory change would require separate legislative action following the study.
Potential issues the study is likely to examine
- Effects on access to recovery for injured persons, incentives for safe conduct, insurance market impacts (premiums, coverage), litigation frequency and settlement patterns, administrative/court burdens, and comparability with other states’ regimes.
Bottom line
- HB 969 is a fact‑finding, policy‑analysis bill: it commissions a formal study to weigh benefits, harms, and fiscal consequences of moving North Carolina from contributory negligence to a comparative negligence system and to recommend the most appropriate alternative framework.
Compiled from official sources — confirm details with the bill’s official record.
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