At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognised at law, the loss must involve damage to property, or mental or physical injury; pure economic loss is rarely recognised for the award of damages.
A tort is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with criminal wrongs that are punishable by the state. While criminal law aims to punish individuals who commit crimes, tort law aims to compensate individuals who suffer harm as a result of the actions of others. Some wrongful acts, such as assault and battery, can result in both a civil lawsuit and a criminal prosecution in countries where the civil and criminal legal systems are separate. Tort law may also be contrasted with contract law, which provides civil remedies after breach of a duty that arises from a contract. Obligations in both tort and criminal law are more fundamental and are imposed regardless of whether the parties have a contract.
A lawsuit is a proceeding by one or more parties against one or more parties in a civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used with respect to a civil action brought by a plaintiff who requests a legal remedy or equitable remedy from a court. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint or else risk default judgment. If the plaintiff is successful, judgment is entered in favor of the defendant. A variety of court orders may be issued in connection with or as part of the judgment to enforce a right, award damages or restitution, or impose a temporary or permanent injunction to prevent an act or compel an act. A declaratory judgment may be issued to prevent future legal disputes.
In English civil litigation, costs are the lawyers' fees and disbursements of the parties.
Restitution and unjust enrichment is the field of law relating to gains-based recovery. In contrast with damages, restitution is a claim or remedy requiring a defendant to give up benefits wrongfully obtained. Liability for restitution is primarily governed by the "principle of unjust enrichment": A person who has been unjustly enriched at the expense of another is required to make restitution.
In law, liable means "responsible or answerable in law; legally obligated". Legal liability concerns both civil law and criminal law and can arise from various areas of law, such as contracts, torts, taxes, or fines given by government agencies. The claimant is the one who seeks to establish, or prove, liability.
A structured settlement is a negotiated financial or insurance arrangement through which a claimant agrees to resolve a personal injury tort claim by receiving part or all of a settlement in the form of periodic payments on an agreed schedule, rather than as a lump sum. As part of the negotiations, a structured settlement may be offered by the defendant or requested by the plaintiff. Ultimately both parties must agree on the terms of settlement. A settlement may allow the parties to a lawsuit to reduce legal and other costs by avoiding trial. Structured settlements are most widely used in the United States, but are also utilized in Canada, England and Australia.
English tort law concerns the compensation for harm to people's rights to health and safety, a clean environment, property, their economic interests, or their reputations. A "tort" is a wrong in civil, rather than criminal law, that usually requires a payment of money to make up for damage that is caused. Alongside contracts and unjust enrichment, tort law is usually seen as forming one of the three main pillars of the law of obligations.
In the law of evidence in the United States, public policy doctrines for the exclusion of relevant evidence encompass several types of evidence that would be relevant to prove facts at issue in a legal proceeding, but which are nonetheless excluded because of public policy concerns. There are five major areas of exclusion that arise out of the Federal Rules of Evidence ("FRE"): subsequent remedial measures, ownership of liability insurance, offers to plead guilty to a crime, offers to settle a claim, and offers to pay medical expenses. Many states have modified versions of the FRE under their own state evidence codes which widen or narrow the public policy exclusions in state courts.
In common law jurisdictions, a misrepresentation is a false or misleading statement of fact made during negotiations by one party to another, the statement then inducing that other party to enter into a contract. The misled party may normally rescind the contract, and sometimes may be awarded damages as well.
Personal injury is a legal term for an injury to the body, mind, or emotions, as opposed to an injury to property. In common law jurisdictions the term is most commonly used to refer to a type of tort lawsuit in which the person bringing the suit has suffered harm to his or her body or mind. Personal injury lawsuits are filed against the person or entity that caused the harm through negligence, gross negligence, reckless conduct, or intentional misconduct, and in some cases on the basis of strict liability. Different jurisdictions describe the damages in different ways, but damages typically include the injured person's medical bills, pain and suffering, and diminished quality of life.
Pain and suffering is the legal term for the physical and emotional stress caused from an injury.
Tort reform consists of changes in the civil justice system in common law countries that aim to reduce the ability of plaintiffs to bring tort litigation or to reduce damages they can receive. Such changes are generally justified under the grounds that litigation is an inefficient means to compensate plaintiffs; that tort law permits frivolous or otherwise undesirable litigation to crowd the court system; or that the fear of litigation can serve to curtail innovation, raise the cost of consumer goods or insurance premiums for suppliers of services, and increase legal costs for businesses. Tort reform has primarily been prominent in common law jurisdictions, where criticism of judge-made rules regarding tort actions manifests in calls for statutory reform by the legislature.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and introduction to tort law in common law jurisdictions:
The English law of unjust enrichment is part of the English law of obligations, along with the law of contract, tort, and trusts. The law of unjust enrichment deals with circumstances in which one person is required to make restitution of a benefit acquired at the expense of another in circumstances which are unjust.
Legal financing is the mechanism or process through which litigants can finance their litigation or other legal costs through a third party funding company.
The Furthering Asbestos Claim Transparency (FACT) Act of 2015 is a bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Congressman Blake Farenthold that would require asbestos trusts in the United States to file quarterly reports about the payouts they make and personal information on the victims who receive them in a publicly accessible database. The legislation would also allow defendant corporations in asbestos cases to demand information from the trusts for any reason.
Asbestos bankruptcy trusts are trusts established by firms that have filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code to pay personal injury claims caused by exposure to asbestos. At least 56 such trusts were established from the mid-1970s to 2011.
The civil liability of a recreational diver may include a duty of care to another diver during a dive. Breach of this duty that is a proximate cause of injury or loss to the other diver may lead to civil litigation for damages in compensation for the injury or loss suffered.
Thompson & Ors v Arnold[2007] EWHC 1875 (QB), was a law on damages case where the existing case law reaffirmed that damages awarded for a claim for personal injury were deemed to have already been awarded, even if death ensued as a consequence of personal injury. Where a claimant had settled their damages claim, or pursued it to trial, their dependants would have no right of action under the Fatal Accidents Act 1976 if the injury later proved fatal. Langstaff J. held that Read v Great Eastern Railway had been correctly decided as a matter of statutory construction and neither Article 6 nor Article 8 of the ECHR had been infringed. The claim was dismissed.
