In Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804, the California Supreme Court abolished the "all-or-nothing" doctrine of contributory negligence and replaced it with a system of comparative negligence, which assesses liability in direct proportion to fault. Though today the term "contributory negligence" is still used, it now means simply that if the trier of fact finds that a plaintiff was also at fault for the accident, it must reduce the total amount of the plaintiff's damages by the proportion or percentage of negligence attributable to the plaintiff. In Li v. Yellow Cab, supra, the Supreme Court recognized that a number of issues including the one confronting us were left open with the stated intent that these unresolved issues should be decided on a case by case basis. The Li court stated at pages 825-826: "Finally there is the problem of the treatment of wilful misconduct under a system of comparative negligence. In jurisdictions following the 'all-or-nothing' rule, contributory negligence is no defense to an action based upon a claim of wilful misconduct (see Rest.2d Torts, 503; Prosser, Torts, supra, 65, p. 426), and this is the present rule in California. ( Williams v. Carr (1968) 68 Cal.2d 579, 583 . . . . ) As Dean Prosser has observed, 'this is in reality a rule of comparative fault which is being applied, and the court is refusing to set up the lesser fault against the greater.' (Prosser, Torts, supra, 65, p. 426.) The thought is that the difference between wilful and wanton misconduct and ordinary negligence is one of kind rather than degree in that the former involves conduct of an entirely different order, and under this conception it might well be urged that comparative negligence concepts should have no application when one of the parties has been guilty of wilful and wanton misconduct. It has been persuasively argued, however, that the loss of deterrent effect that would occur upon application of comparative fault concepts to wilful and wanton misconduct as well as ordinary negligence would be slight, and that a comprehensive system of comparative negligence should allow for the apportionment of damages in all cases involving misconduct which falls short of being intentional. The law of punitive damages remains a separate consideration." (13 Cal.3d at pp. 825-826.)