What is the ‘Tort’ Law of Personal Injury?

What is ‘Tort’ Law?

According to the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL), “Tort Law is concerned with civil wrongs.” It specifically refers to offences made against individuals which differs from criminal law which refers to offences made against society as a whole. These offences made against individuals commonly lead to harm or injury in some capacity.

What Are The Different Types of Tort?

There are 2 different categories of tort: intentional torts and negligent torts. It’s important to understand the differences, so you have a clearer idea whether you have a legal claim. Here are the definitions and some examples of these types of torts.

Intentional Torts

Intentional torts are the opposite of accidents; they are actioned deliberately to cause harm to another individual or piece of property. Some examples of intentional torts include assault and battery, fraud, defamation, trespassing and false imprisonment.

Negligent Torts

Although negligent torts are not deliberate actions to cause harm, they cause unintentional harm through negligence. Some examples of negligent torts include personal injury, professional malpractice, and premises and product liability.

Tort Law & Personal Injury

As mentioned above, personal injury is part of tort law and is defined as a negligent tort. This is because it involves individuals suffering from physical or emotional harm due to another individual’s negligence.

Personal injury law helps to provide the injured party with compensation and hold the responsible party accountable. This is only possible when the tort claim is proved and in order to do so, the injured party must establish that:

The defendant owed them a duty of care to act in a certain way and avoid causing them harm. This duty of care will vary among different circumstances and the relationship between the injured party and the defendant.

The defendant breached this duty of care and failed to meet this responsibility.

There is a link between the breach of duty and the injured party’s injuries. It must be proven that the defendant directly caused these injuries, whereby without the actions or negligence of the defendant, the injured party would not have suffered.

There have been significant damages to the injured party, such as emotional distress, physical injuries, medical expenses, etc. There must be evidence of this to prove the tort claim.