Tort
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Legal Terms Explained
Tort
Legal Terms Explained: Tort
A tort is a civil wrong — an act or failure to act that injures someone else and gives the injured person the right to sue for damages. Nearly every personal injury lawsuit, from a rear-end collision to a medical malpractice claim, is a tort case. The word comes from the Latin tortum, meaning "twisted" or "wrong."
A tort is not a crime, though the same conduct can be both. If a drunk driver hits a pedestrian, the state may prosecute the driver criminally, and the pedestrian may separately sue in tort. The criminal case punishes; the tort case compensates. They run on different tracks, with different burdens of proof.
The three branches of tort law
Every tort falls into one of three categories, organized by the defendant's state of mind — or whether their state of mind matters at all.
- Intentional torts. The defendant meant to do the act: assault, battery, false imprisonment, defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress. The plaintiff must prove intent, not just harm.
- Negligence. The defendant did not mean to hurt anyone but failed to use reasonable care. This is the workhorse of personal injury law — car accidents, slip and falls, professional malpractice. The plaintiff proves a duty of care, a breach of that duty, causation, and damages.
- Strict liability. Fault is irrelevant. For defective products, certain animal attacks, and abnormally dangerous activities, the law imposes liability without any showing of carelessness or intent.
Knowing which branch a case sits in tells you almost everything about what has to be proven and which defenses are available.
What a tort case gets you
The remedy in tort is money damages. Compensatory damages cover what the injury actually cost — medical bills, lost wages, property damage, and pain and suffering. In rare cases involving egregious conduct, courts add punitive damages to punish the defendant and deter others.
Defendants are not without answers. Comparative negligence reduces recovery by the plaintiff's share of fault, and assumption of risk can bar claims arising from voluntarily accepted dangers.
If a tort claim is in your future — on either side of the "v." — the category of tort involved shapes the entire case, and an attorney can tell you quickly which one you are dealing with.
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