Avoidable consequences rule

The avoidable consequences rule is a concept in United States jurisprudence which comes from a common-law rule barring recovery of damages that a tort victim "could have avoided by the use of reasonable effort or expenditure after the commission of the tort." This concept recognizes as fact, that if a plaintiff is injured by a defendant, that the plaintiff must take reasonable steps to avoid aggravating the injuries caused by the defendant. Except as stated in Subsection (2), one injured by the tort of another is not entitled to recover damages for any harm that he could have avoided by the use of reasonable effort or expenditure after the commission of the tort.

Source: Wikipedia — Avoidable consequences rule (CC BY-SA 4.0)