Key legal question
Whether the defendant's contributory negligence and the victim's self-negligence justified an 80% civil-liability share or a lower quota.
Extracted holding
The appellate court erred in assigning the defendant 80%; both parties' negligence was roughly equal, so the defendant's civil liability had to be fixed at 50%.
Extracted reasoning
The first collision was irrelevant to the civil apportionment for the later fatal overrun. For the second phase, both driver and victim breached their duties of attention at about the same time; the victim acted as an assisting person, but the driver also continued reversing after losing sight of him. The lower court gave too much weight to the defendant's fault and too little to the victim's self-negligence.