Butterfield v. Forrester, 11 East 60, 103 Eng. Rep. 926 (K.B. 1809)
Butterfield v. Forrester is one of the earliest and most frequently cited cases in tort law for articulating the doctrine of contributory negligence.
Whether a plaintiff who fails to exercise ordinary care and thereby contributes to his own injury may recover damages from a defendant whose negligence created a hazard in the roadway.
A plaintiff may not recover for injuries if his own lack of ordinary care proximately contributed to the harm. One party's negligence does not excuse the other's duty to use ordinary care for his own safety; if by exercising ordinary care the plaintiff could have avoided the injury, recovery is barred. This is the classic doctrine of contributory negligence.
The court affirmed the verdict for the defendant, holding that the plaintiff's failure to use ordinary care—contributing to the injury—barred recovery, notwithstanding the defendant's negligence in obstructing the roadway.
Butterfield v. Forrester is the seminal authority for the contributory negligence doctrine in Anglo-American tort law. It frames the plaintiff's duty of self-care and established the traditional common-law rule that any contributory fault bars recovery entirely. Although many jurisdictions later adopted comparative negligence to mitigate this harsh result, Butterfield remains essential to understanding the historical baseline, to spotting contributory negligence defenses on exams and in practice, and to appreciating later doctrinal developments such as the last clear chance doctrine and comparative fault statutes.