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.
For example, if one thinks of a surgery as highly dangerous and likely to cause a greater likelihood of injury and damages, perhaps because the surgery itself is unreasonable, a plaintiff must take reasonable steps to avoid aggravating the injuries.
Thus the duty to mitigate is exercised when a reasonable person declines risky surgery for fear that it may make the entire injury worse.
The [...] court, in accepting the sincerity of plaintiff['s] [...] beliefs as a given and asking the jury to consider the reasonableness of her actions only in the context of her own religion, effectively provided government endorsement to those beliefs.
American courts have no business endorsing or condemning the truth or falsity of anyone's religious beliefs.