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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.
In court proceedings, a defendant is a person who is the party either accused of committing a crime in criminal prosecution or against whom some type of civil relief is being sought in a civil case.
A tort, in common law jurisdiction, 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. It can include intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, financial losses, injuries, invasion of privacy, and many other things. The word 'tort' stems from Old French via the Norman Conquest and Latin via the Roman Empire.
Delict is a term in civil law jurisdictions for a civil wrong consisting of an intentional or negligent breach of duty of care that inflicts loss or harm and which triggers legal liability for the wrongdoer; however, its meaning varies from one jurisdiction to another. Other civil wrongs include breach of contract and breach of trust. Liability is imposed on the basis of moral responsibility, i.e. a duty of care or to act, and fault (culpa) is the main element of liability. The term is used in mixed legal systems such as Scotland, South Africa, Louisiana and the Philippines, but tort is the equivalent legal term used in common law jurisdictions.
Wrongful death 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.
A wrong is an act that is illegal or immoral. Legal wrongs are usually quite clearly defined in the law of a state and/or jurisdiction. They can be divided into civil wrongs and crimes in common law countries, while civil law countries tend to have some additional categories, such as contraventions.
In Australia, Torts are common law actions for civil wrongs. Unless barred by statute, individuals are entitled to sue other people, or the state; for the purpose of obtaining a legal remedy for the wrong committed.
The law of restitution is the law of gains-based recovery, in which a court orders the defendant to give up his gains to the claimant. It should be contrasted with the law of compensation, the law of loss-based recovery, in which a court orders the defendant to pay the claimant for their loss.
Replevin or claim and delivery is a legal remedy, which enables a person to recover personal property taken wrongfully or unlawfully, and to obtain compensation for resulting losses.
In tort law, detinue is an action to recover for the wrongful taking of personal property. It is initiated by an individual who claims to have a greater right to their immediate possession than the current possessor. For an action in detinue to succeed, a claimant must first prove that he had better right to possession of the chattel than the defendant and second that the defendant refused to return the chattel once demanded by the claimant.
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.
In English law, a petition of right was a remedy available to subjects to recover property from the Crown.
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.
Glanville Llewelyn Williams was a Welsh legal scholar who was the Rouse Ball Professor of English Law at the University of Cambridge from 1968 to 1978 and the Quain Professor of Jurisprudence at University College, London, from 1945 to 1955. He has been described as Britain's foremost scholar of criminal law.
The Law Reform Committee was a committee in England and Wales appointed by the Lord Chancellor "to consider, having regard especially to judicial decisions, what changes are desirable in such legal doctrines as the Lord Chancellor may from time to time refer to Committee".
The following outline is provided as an overview of and introduction to tort law:
Conversion is an intentional tort consisting of "taking with the intent of exercising over the chattel an ownership inconsistent with the real owner's right of possession". In England & Wales, it is a tort of strict liability. Its equivalents in criminal law include larceny or theft and criminal conversion. In those jurisdictions that recognise it, criminal conversion is a lesser crime than theft/larceny.
Administrative liability in English law is an area of law concerning the tortious liability of public bodies in English law. The existence of private law tort applying to public bodies is a result of Diceyan constitutional theory suggesting that it would be unfair if a separate system of liability existing for government and officials. Therefore a public body which acts ultra vires is liable in tort is a cause of action can be established just like any individual would be. An ultra vires action will not, per se, give rise to damages Therefore a claimant will have to fit into one of the recognised private law courses of action. These areas in which a public body can incur private liability in tort were described by Lord Browne Wilkinson in X v Bedfordshire County Council [1995] 3 All ER 353 (HL).
The Statute of Gloucester is a piece of legislation enacted in the Parliament of England during the reign of Edward I. The statute, proclaimed at Gloucester in August 1278, was crucial to the development of English law. The Statute of Gloucester and the ensuing legal hearings were a means by which Edward I tried to recover regal authority that had been alienated during the reign of his father, King Henry III (1216–1272), who had been made a virtual tool of the baronial party, led by Simon de Montfort. Edward I recognized the need for the legal "reform" and considered Parliament as a means of buying popular support by encouraging loyal subjects to petition the King against his own barons and ministers.
Civil law is a major branch of the law. In common law legal systems such as England and Wales and the United States, the term refers to non-criminal law. The law relating to civil wrongs and quasi-contracts is part of the civil law, as is law of property. Civil law may, like criminal law, be divided into substantive law and procedural law. The rights and duties of persons amongst themselves is the primary concern of civil law.
References
- ↑ Williams (1982) , pp. 9–10.
- ↑ Clerk (1989) , para. 1–14 at p. 12.
- ↑ Rogers v Rajendro Dutt (1860) 13 Moo P C 209, 9 WR 149, 15 ER 78, quoted in House of Lords, Watkins (Respondent) v. Home Office (Appellants) and others, [2006] UKHL 17.
- ↑ Williams (1982) , p. 2.
- ↑ Williams (1982) , p. 3.
- ↑ Williams (1982) , p. 4.
- ↑ Phillips (1960) , pp. 207, 208, 213.
