§ 5-4.2 Trial and burden of proof of contributory negligence
On the trial of an action accruing before September first, nineteen hundred seventy-five to recover damages for causing death the contributory negligence of the decedent shall be a defense, to be pleaded and proved by the defendant.
What 5-4.2 Does
Function: Addresses contributory negligence as a defense (and who bears the burden), but only for actions accruing before September 1, 1975.
This is easy to misread because it sits inside the wrongful death part, but it is not the core modern comparative-fault framework. Treat it as a historically bounded rule that still appears in the statutory corpus.
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