Does the doctrine of negligence per se apply in Massachusetts?

On behalf of Aiken and Aiken P.C. Personal Injury Attorneys posted in Car Accidents, on Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Sometimes an injury that is actionable in civil court can include an aspect of criminal law. Many states will consider a statutory violation by a defendant in a negligence case to benefit the plaintiff’s case by making the burden of proof easier to carry, by holding that the proof of such a violation establishes a rebuttable presumption that the defendant was negligent. This use of statutes is known as “negligence per se”.Negligence per se has some prerequisites before it can be applied. For example, the law in question must usually be intended for public safety, and the plaintiff must show that he was in the class of people that the legislature intended to protect when it enacted the law. But the most important prerequisite for the application of negligence per se is that the state where the plaintiff would use the doctrine recognizes it. In Massachusetts, that latter requisite can be problematic. Massachusetts’s court decisions have established that it is certainly possible for a plaintiff in a negligence lawsuit to refer to the defendant’s statutory violation. But rather than the presumption of negligence that would arise from a finding of negligence per se, in Massachusetts such a violation is only evidence of negligence (that is, it does not lead to a presumption of negligence). Thus, for example, if you were involved in a car accident and you could show that the other driver was speeding and had no driver’s license or car insurance, in Massachusetts all of the above could serve as evidence. However, you would still need to prove all of the elements of a negligence cause of action in the same way as if no such violations of law had occurred.