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Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal definition of defamation and related acts as well as the ways they are dealt with can vary greatly between countries and jurisdictions.
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.
The law of obligations is one branch of private law under the civil law legal system and so-called "mixed" legal systems. It is the body of rules that organizes and regulates the rights and duties arising between individuals. The specific rights and duties are referred to as obligations, and this area of law deals with their creation, effects and extinction.
Delict is a term in civil and mixed law jurisdictions whose exact meaning varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction but is always centered on the notion of wrongful conduct.
In a civil proceeding or criminal prosecution under the common law or under statute, a defendant may raise a defense in an effort to avert civil liability or criminal conviction. A defense is put forward by a party to defeat a suit or action brought against the party, and may be based on legal grounds or on factual claims.
The lex Aquilia was a Roman law which provided compensation to the owners of property injured by someone's fault, set in the 3rd century BC, in the Roman Republic. This law protected Roman citizens from some forms of theft, vandalism, and destruction of property.
Delict in Scots law is the area of law concerned with those civil wrongs which are actionable before the Scottish courts. The Scots use of the term 'delict' is consistent with the jurisdiction's connection with Civilian jurisprudence; Scots private law has a 'mixed' character, blending together elements borrowed from Civil law and Common law, as well as indigenous Scottish developments. The term tort law, or 'law of torts', is used in Anglo-American jurisdictions to describe the area of law in those systems. Unlike in a system of torts, the Scots law of delict operates on broad principles of liability for wrongdoing: 'there is no such thing as an exhaustive list of named delicts in the law of Scotland. If the conduct complained of appears to be wrongful, the law of Scotland will afford a remedy even if there has not been any previous instance of a remedy being given in similar circumstances'. While some terms such as assault and defamation are used in systems of tort law, their technical meanings differ in Scottish delict.
Restitutio ad integrum, or restitutio in integrum, is a Latin term that means "restoration to original condition". It is one of the primary guiding principles behind the awarding of damages in common law negligence claims.
Volenti non fit iniuria is a common law doctrine which states that if someone willingly places themselves in a position where harm might result, knowing that some degree of harm might result, they are not able to bring a claim against the other party in tort or delict. Volenti applies only to the risk which a reasonable person would consider them as having assumed by their actions; thus a boxer consents to being hit, and to the injuries that might be expected from being hit, but does not consent to his opponent striking him with an iron bar, or punching him outside the usual terms of boxing. Volenti is also known as a "voluntary assumption of risk".
The history of Roman law can be divided into three systems of procedure: that of legis actiones, the formulary system, and cognitio extra ordinem. Though the periods in which these systems were in use overlapped one another and did not have definitive breaks, the legis actio system prevailed from the time of the XII Tables until about the end of the 2nd century BC, the formulary procedure was primarily used from the last century of the Republic until the end of the classical period, and cognitio extra ordinem was in use in post-classical times.
Stipulatio was the basic form of contract in Roman law. It was made in the format of question and answer.
Usucapio was a concept in Roman law that dealt with the acquisition of ownership of something through possession. It was subsequently developed as a principle of civil law systems, usucaption. It is similar to the common law concept of adverse possession, or acquiring land prescriptively.
Consensu or obligatio consensu or obligatio consensu contracta or obligations ex consensu or contractus ex consensu or contracts consensu or consensual contracts or obligations by consent are, in Roman law, those contracts which do not require formalities.
Rapina was a delict of Roman law.
The South African law of delict engages primarily with 'the circumstances in which one person can claim compensation from another for harm that has been suffered'. JC Van der Walt and Rob Midgley define a delict 'in general terms [...] as a civil wrong', and more narrowly as 'wrongful and blameworthy conduct which causes harm to a person'. Importantly, however, the civil wrong must be an actionable one, resulting in liability on the part of the wrongdoer or tortfeasor.
Furtum was a delict of Roman law comparable to the modern offence of theft despite being a civil and not criminal wrong. In the classical law and later, it denoted the contrectatio ("handling") of most types of property with a particular sort of intention – fraud and in the later law, a view to gain. It is unclear whether a view to gain was always required or added later, and, if the latter, when. This meant that the owner did not consent, although Justinian broadened this in at least one case. The law of furtum protected a variety of property interests, but not land, things without an owner, or types of state or religious things. An owner could commit theft by taking his things back in certain circumstances, as could a borrower or similar user through misuse.
In Roman law, contracts could be divided between those in re, those that were consensual, and those that were innominate contracts in Roman law. Although Gaius only identifies a single type of contract in re, it is commonly thought that there were four, as Justinian identifies: mutuum, commodatum, depositum (deposit) and pignus (pledge).
Damnum iniuria datum was a delict of Roman law relating to the wrongful damage to property. It was created by the Lex Aquilia in the third century BC, and consisted of two parts: chapter one, which dealt with the killing of another's slave or certain types of animal; and chapter three which related to other types of property. It was widely extended both by reference to the words of the statute themselves and by the Praetor.
Iniuria was a delict in Roman law for the outrage, or affront, caused by contumelious action taken against another person.
In Bulgaria, the law of obligations is set out by the Obligations and Contracts Act (OCA). According to article 20a, OCA contracts shall have the force of law for the parties that conclude them.
References
- 1 2 Kolańczyk, Kazimierz (2007). Prawo rzymskie (5th ed.). Warszawa: Wolters Kluwer. pp. 424–425. ISBN 978-83-7334-031-2.
- 1 2 Kolańczyk, p. 426
- ↑ Kolańczyk, p. 425
- ↑ Justinian. "Institutes" (PDF). amesfoundation.law.harvard.edu. - I. 4, 12, 1 - "Actions which will lie against a man [...] will not always lie against his heir, the rule being absolute that for delict — for instance, theft, robbery, outrage, or unlawful damage — no penal action can be brought against the heir. The heir of the person wronged, however, may bring these actions, except in outrage, and similar cases, if any."
- ↑ Kolańczyk p. 428
- ↑ Kolańczyk, p. 430
- ↑ Justinian. "Institutes" I. 4, 2
- ↑ Justinian. "Institutes" - I. 4, 6, 19 - "The action on robbery is mixed, for the damages recoverable thereunder are four times the value of the property taken, three-fourths being pure penalty, and the remaining fourth compensation for the loss which the plaintiff has sustained."
- ↑ Kolańczyk, p. 432
- ↑ Justinian. "Institutes" - I. 4, 6, 19 - "So too the action on unlawful damage under the lex Aquilia is mixed, not only where the defendant denies his liability, and so is sued for double damages [...]"
- 1 2 Kolańczyk, p. 433
- ↑ Justinian. "Institutes" - I. 4, 12, 1 - "The heir of the person wronged [...] may bring these actions, except in outrage, and similar cases [...]"
- 1 2 Kolańczyk, p. 435
- ↑ Kolańczyk, p. 436
- ↑ Kolańczyk, pp. 436–437
- 1 2 Kolańczyk, p. 437
- 1 2 3 Kolańczyk, p. 438
- ↑ Justinian. "Institutes" - I. 4, 5, 3 - "[...] Ship-owners, inn and stable keepers are liable as on a quasi-delict for wilful damage or theft committed in their ships, inns, or stables, provided the act be done by some or one of their servants there employed [...] as they are in some sense in fault for employing careless or dishonest servants [...]"