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.
Wrongful deathclaim is a claim against a person who can be held liable for a death. The claim is brought in a civil action, usually by close relatives, as enumerated by statute. In wrongful death cases, survivors are compensated for the harm and losses they have suffered after losing a loved one.
This article addresses torts in United States law. As such, it covers primarily common law. Moreover, it provides general rules, as individual states all have separate civil codes. There are three general categories of torts: intentional torts, negligence, and strict liability torts.
In some common law jurisdictions, contributory negligence is a defense to a tort claim based on negligence. If it is available, the defense completely bars plaintiffs from any recovery if they contribute to their own injury through their own negligence.
Loss of consortium is a term used in the law of torts that refers to the deprivation of the benefits of a family relationship due to injuries caused by a tortfeasor. In this context, the word consortium means "(the right of) association and fellowship between two married people". Damages may be claimed under three theories: incurred medical costs or those yet to be incurred by the plaintiff, the loss of an injured spouse's services, and loss of society.
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 law, 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.
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 their 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.
In English law, a nervous shock is a psychiatric / mental illness or injury inflicted upon a person by intentional or negligent actions or omissions of another. Often it is a psychiatric disorder triggered by witnessing an accident, for example an injury caused to one's parents or spouse. Although the term "nervous shock" has been described as "inaccurate" and "misleading", it continues to be applied as a useful abbreviation for a complex concept. The possibility of recovering damages for nervous shock, particularly caused by negligence, is strongly limited in English law.
The Fatal Accidents Act 1846, commonly known as Lord Campbell's Act, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, that, for the first time in England and Wales, allowed relatives of people killed by the wrongdoing of others to recover damages.
The Compensation Act 2006 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, introduced in response to concerns about a growing compensation culture but conversely to ensure that the public received dependable service from claims management companies. In introducing the Bill, Baroness Ashton said that it was intended "to tackle perceptions that can lead to a disproportionate fear of litigation and risk averse behaviour; to find ways to discourage and resist bad claims; and to improve the system for those with a valid claim for compensation."
Economic loss is a term of art which refers to financial loss and damage suffered by a person which is seen only on a balance sheet and not as physical injury to person or property. There is a fundamental distinction between pure economic loss and consequential economic loss, as pure economic loss occurs independent of any physical damage to the person or property of the victim. It has also been suggested that this tort should be called "commercial loss" as injuries to person or property can be regarded as "economic".
The following outline is provided as an overview of and introduction to tort law in common law jurisdictions:
Royscot Trust Ltd v Rogerson[1991] EWCA Civ 12 is an English contract law case on misrepresentation. It examines the Misrepresentation Act 1967 and addresses the extent of damages available under s 2(1) for negligent misrepresentation.
Solatium is a form of compensation for emotional rather than physical or financial harm. The word entered English during the 1810s, as a loanword from Latin sōlātium or sōlācium.
The Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA) is a United States admiralty law enacted by the United States Congress in 1920. The Act functions as a wrongful death statute, providing a cause of action for surviving family members when an individual dies as a result of a wrongful act or disaster in international waters. These individuals may make a civil claim for damages against the "person or vessel responsible" for the wrongful or negligent act that caused the death. DOHSA also applies to negligent acts causing death that occur after the initial accident, if the decedent was on the high seas at the time the negligence began. Though DOHSA is generally the exclusive remedy available for certain wrongful death claims under maritime law, surviving relatives may make concurrent claims under DOHSA and the Jones Act in some circumstances.
The eggshell rule is a well-established legal doctrine in common law, used in some tort law systems, with a similar doctrine applicable to criminal law. The rule states that, in a tort case, the unexpected frailty of the injured person is not a valid defense to the seriousness of any injury caused to them.
Cox v Ergo Versicherung AG[2014] UKSC 22 is a judicial decision of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom relating to the conflict of laws and the assessment of damages following a road traffic accident.
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.
Read v Great Eastern Railway (1868) LR 3 QB 555 was an English tort law case which created a strong authority enshrining the principle that if a deceased person has settled a damages claim discharging all the claims and causes of action against the defendant in full satisfaction within their lifetime, no further action can be brought by their representatives if the injured person subsequently dies from the same injuries. It was held that a claim for loss of dependency under section 1 of the Fatal Accidents Act 1846, also known as "Lord Campbell's Act", could not be brought if a person died from the effects of an injury for which they had settled a claim during their lifetime, as they would not be capable of any fresh cause of action.
