Tort law

Tort law governs civil liability when wrongful conduct causes harm. It provides remedies, usually damages, to people whose legally protected interests have been injured.

Duty of care: A legal obligation to take reasonable care to avoid causing foreseeable harm to others. Negligence liability begins by asking whether the defendant owed the injured person this obligation.
Negligence: A tort involving failure to take reasonable care, causing legally recognized harm to another. It is the central framework for many personal injury and property damage claims.
Contract law: The body of law governing enforceable agreements and the rights and duties they create. Contract claims arise from breached agreements, while tort duties can exist independently of agreement.
Compensatory damages: Money intended to place an injured party, as far as possible, in the position they would have occupied without the wrong. They translate proven tort losses into a monetary remedy.
Common law: A legal tradition in which court decisions and precedent are major sources of law. Tort law developed through common-law courts, though statutes now shape many of its rules.
Causation in English law: The legal tests used in English law to connect a defendant’s conduct with a claimant’s loss. Tort liability generally requires both factual and legally recognized causation.
Trespass to land: An intentional, direct, and unjustified interference with another person’s possession of land. It protects possession through liability that does not always require proof of actual damage.
Criminal law: The body of law defining offenses against the state and establishing public prosecution and punishment. A single act can trigger criminal prosecution and a separate civil tort claim.
Punitive damages: Damages awarded chiefly to punish especially wrongful conduct and deter similar behavior, rather than compensate loss. Their availability shows that tort remedies can serve purposes beyond compensation.
Donoghue v Stevenson: A 1932 UK House of Lords decision recognizing a manufacturer’s duty of care to the ultimate consumer. The case helped establish the modern negligence principle that foreseeable neighbors may be owed a duty.

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