Terms Used In 18 Guam Code Ann. § 90108

  • Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
  • Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
Contributory negligence shall not bar recovery in an action by any person or his legal representative to recover damages for negligence resulting in death or in injury to person or property, if such negligence was not as great as the negligence of the person against whom recovery is sought, but any damages allowed under the law on Compensatory Relief shall be diminished in proportion to the amount of negligence attributable to the person recovering.

SOURCE: CC § 1714.1 added by P.L. 12-46:2 (10/19/73). P.L. 12-53:2 (11/16/73)
makes these two sections applicable only to causes of action arising after October 19,
1973.

COMMENT: The purpose of the above two sections was to abolish the doctrine of contributory negligence whereby a person who is in any way negligent will not recover from another for his injuries, no matter how negligent was the other person.

The Compiler recalls that these two laws did not come from California, but from some other jurisdiction, perhaps Wisconsin.