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Posted May 24, 2021

What Is Tort Law?

Tort LawA tort is an omission or an act that results in harm or injury to another, which leads to a civil wrong that makes a court impose liability. While talking about torts, the invasion of a particular legal right is described by one word, ‘injury’. On the other hand, ‘harm’ describes the loss that an individual suffers. Furthermore, it can be described as an area of law that covers most civil suits. It further claims that arise in civil courts excluding contractual disputes are under tort law.

What tort involves

The concept around tort law is to redress wrongs done to people and, in the end, provide them with relief from the wrongful doings of other people. In most cases, relief is acheived by rewarding monetary damages such as compensation. Therefore, the original intention revolving around tort law is to provide compensation for harms that are proven. Tort actions come in three categories; strict liability, negligence and intentional torts. Each element is a bit different from the other. However, the process of litigating all the elements is the same.

Negligence is the most popular of tort cases. Its main negligence comes when the one responsible for doing wrong is careless and is responsible for the harm that his/her carelessness caused someone else. According to experts, for a lawsuit to be successful, four elements involve negligence have to be proven. These elements are;

  • Duty
  • Breach
  • Causation
  • Harm

Duty: This is the first element of negligence. It’s also known as the duty of care. A duty is an obligation to do or not do something that will cause harm to another person. Duty can be seen as an obligation. Therefore, we all must act reasonably or reasonably avoid doing certain actions that will cause harm to other people. For instance, a reasonable person knows that if they fail to follow the rules while driving, it may harm other people.

Breach: The moment a plaintiff establishes and proves that a defendant owes the plaintiff a duty of care, then breach of care is the second element that a plaintiff needs to prove. Duty of care is when a person of an organisation has the duty of care to someone else and does not live up to the expected standards.

Causation: There are two types of negligence causation; proximate cause and actual cause. Actual cause can at times be known as a cause in fact.

Harm: Harm can come in several forms, either economic, loss wage or medical costs. It can also be non-economic, like extreme emotional distress, pain and suffering. Harm and causation, in most cases, go hand in hand – and without causation, there will be no harm.

Intentional torts

Types of torts will only come from intentional acts of defendants. It depends on the alleged tort. For instance, specific or general. There will be a need for proof of intent. There are seven common intentional torts.

7 intentional torts

Strict liability

Strict liability applies to cases in that responsibility for an injury can be imposed on the offender with no direct fault. What really matters is that an action happened that led to the eventual injury of someone else. Some examples of strict liability include:

  • Abnormally dangerous activities
  • Animal attacks
  • Defective products

Importance of tort law in LLMs

Tort law covers a wide range of things that occur in society while in the process offering different types of career opportunities. Tort law basically ensures that people don’t suffer unnecessary losses. There are different forms of losses, such as one person’s actions can prevent another from going to work due to injuries gotten from the actions. Lawyers working under tort law have to work together with people that feel like they have undergone certain losses. They have to work towards ascertaining whether a loss has occurred, the type of loss, and convince the court to take their client’s side. Just like other areas of law, tort law also involves lots of paperwork and a lot of support staff, from legal executives to secretaries to court interpreters and reporters. There are scenarios where tort law will need you to act fast. For instance, in libel cases, lawyers have to act fast to prevent the occurrence of irreparable damage, to prevent some articles from being published and even prevent certain television programs from airing.

Difference between a tort & a crime

Crimes can be known as wrongful acts that interfere or injure interests of society while tort can be known as wrongful acts that interfere or injure an individual or property. Tort law helps people to claim for compensation when people hurt them or their property.

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