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Ch.1- What is Tort Law
Course: Torts (LAW 15)
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University: University of Miami
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Chapter 1- Tort Law
I. What is Tort Law?
Tort as wrongdoing
Torts are wrongs recognized by law as grounds for a lawsuit.
Torts involve conduct that falls below some legal standard.
In most cases, the defendant is at fault, either bc he intends harm or because he takes unreasonable risks of
harm.
Harm Required
In all tort cases, the defendant's wrong results in a harm to another person (or entity)- the law is willing to
say constitutes a legal injury.
Injured person is said to have a "cause of action"
*A claim against the person who committed the tort.
*The claim can be pursued in court.
*Types of injuries:
Physical injury or threat of physical injury.
Harm that is purely commercial
Intangible harm- harm to reputation.
Torts, crimes, and contracts
A breach of contract is often not considered a tort
*Must be redressed under rules of contract not rules of tort.
Torts can also be crimes
*Ex: punch in the nose- tort called battery but may also be a crime.
*Defendants who attack plaintiff can be prosecuted criminally and held liable for the tort.
*The two field overlap but are not identical.
*Criminal law aims at vindicating public interests- tort law aims at vindicating individual rights and
redressing private harms.
Non-tort system
Alternatives to tort law- workers' compensation systems- require employers to buy insurance & pay for all
on-the-job injuries even when employer is not at fault.
Common questions in tort law- laws of torts are concerned with 3 questions:
1. What conduct counts as tortious or wrongful?
2. Did the conduct cause the kind of harm the law will recognize?
3. What defenses can be raised against liability if the defendant has committed a tort?
II. The Goals of Tort Law
A. Some Broad (and conflicting) Aims
§ 10 Justice, policy, and process aims of tort law in summary :Aims of tort law- usually erected under 1
or 2 large systems of thought:
Morality or corrective justice
1. Moral Responsibility: attempts to hold defendants liable for harms they wrongfully cause and no
others.
2. Corrective justice: good social effect may result when courts act to right wrongs done by defendants.
*In this system of thought that is not the point of imposing liability.
*Liability is imposed when and only when it is "right" to do so.
Social utility or public policy
*Bases tort law on social policy or a good-for-all-of-us view.
*Social policy's dominant concerns are to provide a system of rules that works towards the good of
society.
Potential conflicts- The first two thoughts are regarded as antithetical to each other.
*When justice and policy do not point to the same result- one view must prevail or both are
compromised.