A genuinely rare rule nationally
Of the 51 American jurisdictions (the 50 states plus the District of Columbia), only five still apply pure contributory negligence, where any fault on a claimant's part, however small, bars recovery entirely. The other 46 all use some form of comparative negligence, where fault reduces a recovery rather than automatically eliminating it.
The five contributory negligence jurisdictions
Maryland's peer group under this rule is: Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.
A real regional cluster, with one partial exception
Unlike some fault rules that are scattered across the country, four of these five jurisdictions — Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and DC — sit right next to each other along the Mid-Atlantic, making this a genuine regional concentration rather than a coincidence. DC, notably, carved out a specific statutory exception in 2016: pedestrians and cyclists struck by a motor vehicle get a 51% comparative bar instead of the ordinary contributory rule, a carve-out Maryland itself has not adopted.
Shared rule, separate case law
All five jurisdictions share the same fundamental rule, but each has developed its own body of exceptions and case law around it. Maryland's own narrow "last clear chance" doctrine — allowing recovery where the defendant had a later, clear opportunity to avoid the harm and failed to take it — is a specifically Maryland gloss on the shared contributory negligence framework, not something every jurisdiction in this group applies in exactly the same way.
Why this matters before evaluating any claim
Because the practical effect of a fault finding is so dramatically different here than in the other 46 jurisdictions, recognizing that Maryland belongs to this small, strict group is the single most important starting point for evaluating any Maryland injury claim. See our full comparison of contributory and comparative negligence for exactly how different the two systems really are.