TORT LAW

August 19, 2015 by: Content Team 8 comments

Tort law refers to the set of laws that provides remedies to individuals who
have suffered harm by the unreasonable acts of another. The law of tort is
based on the idea that people are liable for the consequences of their actions,
whether intentional or accidental, if they cause harm to another person or
entity. Torts are the civil wrongs that form the basis of civil lawsuits. To
explore this concept, consider the following tort law definition.

Definition of Tort Law

Noun
1. An area of law that deals with the wrongful actions of an individual or
entity, which cause injury to another individual’s or entity’s person,
property, or reputation, and which entitle the injured party to
compensation.
Origin of Tort

1350-1400 Middle English (injury, wrong)

What is Tort Law

Tort law is the body of laws that enables people to seek compensation for
wrongs committed against them. When someone’s actions cause some type
of harm to another, whether it be physical harm to another person, or harm to
someone’s property or reputation, the harmed or injured person or entity may
seek damages through the court.
Damages are a monetary award ordered by the court to be paid to an injured
party, by the party at fault. Damages may be awarded in compensation for
loss of, or damage to, personal or real property, for an injury, or for a financial
loss.

The types of damages that may be awarded by the court for civil wrongs,
called “tortious conduct,” of an individual or entity include:

 Reimbursement for property loss or property damage

 Medical expenses
  Pain and suffering
 Loss of earning capacity
 Punitive damages

Tort Liability
The legal term tort refers to an action in which one person or entity causes
injury, harm, or damage to another person or entity. A tort liability may occur
as a result of intentional acts, a negligent act, a failure to act when the
individual had a duty to act, or a violation of statutes or laws. The individual
who commits the tortious act (the act leading to the tort liability claim) is called
the “tortfeasor,” and is the defendant in this type of civil lawsuit. Such a
defendant is generally held liable for damages or harm suffered by the
plaintiff, as a result of the defendant’s acts.
In many tort cases, the damages or injury suffered by the plaintiff do not have
to be physical injury. A defendant in a tort liability case, who is found to be
liable for his or her tortious acts, may be ordered to pay damages for harm,
such as violation of personal rights, pain and suffering, and emotional distress.

Types of Tort
There are a number of specific types of tort that form the basis of the majority
of civil lawsuits in the United States. These include, among others:

 Negligence
 Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
 Assault
 Battery
 Trespass
 Products Liability

Tort law divides most specific torts into three general categories:

1. Intentional Torts – the causing of harm by an intentional act, such as

intentionally conning someone out of his money.
2. Negligent Torts – the causing of harm through some negligent act, such
as causing a car accident by running a red light.
 3. Strict Liability Torts – the result of harm incurred due to the actions of
another, with no finding of fault by the defendant.

Additional and separate specific torts include:

 Defamation Torts
 Nuisance Torts
 Privacy Torts
 Economic Torts

Intentional Torts
Intentional torts are acts committed with the intent to harm another, or to
deliberately interfere with an individual’s rights to bodily safety, emotional
tranquility, privacy, control over property, freedom from deception, and
freedom from confinement. Intentional torts commonly include such issues as
assault and/or battery, false imprisonment, invasion of privacy, theft, property
damage, fraud or other deception, and trespassing.
Intent is a key issue in proving an intentional tort, as the injured party, called
the Plaintiff, must prove to the court that the other party, called the
Respondent or Defendant, acted intentionally, and knew that his actions could
cause harm. In some cases, the Plaintiff need only prove that the
Defendant should have known that his actions could cause harm. Many
intentional torts may also be charged as criminal offenses.
Tort examples:
Raymond stops by the local bar for a few drinks before he heads home after
work. After drinking four cocktails, Raymond gets into his car, and runs a stop
sign, crashing into another car, seriously injuring its occupants. Although
Raymond might argue that he didn’t know he would hurt someone, it is
expected that Raymond should have known that driving under the influence is
likely to cause harm, or to kill another person.

Because Raymond intentionally drank alcohol, knowing he planned on driving

home, and any reasonable person should know that drinking and driving could
result in harm, he has committed an intentional tort. In addition, Raymond may
be criminally charged with felony DUI.

Negligent Torts
The acts leading to claims of harm or injury in negligent torts are not
intentional. There are three specific elements that must be satisfied in a claim
of negligence:

1. The defendant must have a duty or owe a service to the plaintiff or victim
2. The defendant must have failed that duty, or violated a promise or
obligation to the plaintiff
3. The plaintiff must have suffered an actual loss, injury, or damages that
were directly caused by the plaintiff’s actions, or failure to act

Strict Liability Torts

Strict liability refers to the concept of imposing liability on a defendant, usually
a manufacturer, without proving negligent fault, or intent to cause harm. The
purpose of strict liability torts is to regulate activities that are acknowledged as
being necessary and useful to society, but which pose an abnormally high risk
of danger to the public.

Such activities may include transportation and storage of hazardous

substances, blasting, and keeping certain wild animals in captivity. The
possibility of civil lawsuits under strict liability torts keeps individuals or
corporations undertaking such dangerous acts diligent in taking every possible
precaution to keep the public safe.

Suing Under Strict Liability Tort

In a strict liability lawsuit, the law assumes that the supplier or manufacturer of
the product was aware the defect existed before the product reached the
consumer. Because of this, the plaintiff need only prove that harm or damages
occurred, and that the defendant is responsible. To successfully bring a civil
lawsuit under a strict liability tort, the following elements must be proven:

1. The named defendant is the manufacturer of the defective product

2. The product was defective when the plaintiff purchased it
3. The defect was present when the defendant sold the product
4. The defect caused the plaintiff’s injuries or damages
5. The injuries or damages caused by the product’s defect were reasonably
foreseeable by the defendant
A plaintiff in a strict liability lawsuit may be awarded additional damages if he
can prove that the defendant knew about the defect when the product was
sold to consumers.

Tort examples:

Amanda buys a new car from her local Zoom Auto dealership. Only three
months later, Amanda noticed her brakes felt soft, so she took her car to
dealer’s repair shop. They told her she just needed new brake pads, replaced
them, and sent Amanda on her way. A month later, while Amanda was driving
on a busy freeway, her brakes failed, and she crashed into another car.
Amanda’s car was very badly damaged, and Amanda suffered a broken arm
and a concussion.

Amanda discovers, while researching the brake problem she had been having
with her car, that this particular model has had brake problems since it was
first released for sale to the public. In digging deeper, Amanda discovers that
Zoom Auto knew the car’s brake system was defective before they sold the
cars, but determined it would be too expensive to bring them all back into the
factory to change out the brake systems.

In suing Zoom Auto, Amanda must use this information to prove:

1. Zoom Auto manufactured the defective vehicle

2. The car’s brake system was defective when she bought the car
3. The car’s brake system was defective when Zoom Auto sold the car to
Amanda
4. The brake defect caused Amanda’s injuries, as well as the severe
damage to her car
5. It was reasonably foreseeable that selling a car with a defective brake
system would cause injury to consumers
6. Zoom Auto knew about the defective brake system in this particular model
car before they sold the vehicles, yet chose to sell them anyway, in blatant
disregard of the safety of consumers

Federal Tort Claims Act

Historically, under the legal doctrine of “sovereign immunity,” people could not
sue the government, unless the government gave them permission. This left
people who, for instance, were run over by the mailman, slipped in a puddle
caused by a leaky water fountain in the passport office, or were hit by a car
driven by an FBI agent who was talking on his phone, out in the cold.
In 1946, Congress passed the Federal Tort Claims Act, giving people the right
to sue the U.S. government in federal court for tortious acts committed by
individuals acting in their rolls as federal government employees. This
permission is limited, however, maintaining certain protections for the
government.

Under the Federal Tort Claims Act (“FTCA”), the U.S. government is liable for
the tortious acts of individuals acting on the government’s behalf, in the same
way a private party would be liable in similar circumstances. The amount of
damages that may be awarded in such a lawsuit, however, is limited, with no
allowance for punitive damages, or interest accumulated prior to the date of
judgment.

The Federal Tort Claims Act also exempts the federal government from
certain specified torts, though this protection is not extended to intentional
torts committed by law enforcement officials. This means that individuals
harmed by the unlawful actions of law enforcement officials may bring a civil
lawsuit against the agency for damages.

Filing a Claim under the FTCA

The FTCA specifies that anyone wishing to file a tort claim against the United
States must do so, in writing to the appropriate federal agency, within two
years of the date the tort occurred. This means that the statute of
limitations on filing an administrative claim under the FTCA is two years.

Any individual wishing to file an administrative claim for reimbursement for

damages or injury must demonstrate that:

1. His property was damaged, or he was injured, by the actions of an

employee of the federal government
2. The federal employee was acting in his official capacity at the time the
damage or injury occurred
3. The federal employee acted wrongfully, or negligently
4. The federal employee’s wrongful or negligent act caused the plaintiff’s
damages or injury
In most tort cases, an individual who desires to file a claim under the FTCA
must first file an administrative claim with the federal agency that employs the
employee that caused the damages. This requires filling out the required
forms, and providing documents or other evidence supporting the claimant’s
position. Forms and additional information can be obtained from the
Department of Justice website.

Once an administrative claim has been filed, the agency has six months to
respond to the claimant. If the claimant is not happy with the agency’s
response or decision, he has six months from the date the response was
mailed to him to file a civil lawsuit under the FTCA. In the event the federal
agency does not respond to the claimant within the six month time frame, the
claimant may go ahead and file a civil lawsuit, but his six-month statute of
limitations does not begin to run until the agency actually provides a response
or decision.

When filing a claim under the FTCA, the lawsuit must be filed in the U.S.
District Court, which is the official name of the federal court, in the district
where the tortious act occurred, or where the plaintiff lives.

Tort Reform
The term tort reform has been bandied about as a hot-button issue since the
congressional elections in 2010. The average American citizen does not
understand what tort reform actually means, and has no idea that it has no
bearing on any laws, but is a general acknowledgement that the amount of
damages awarded to victorious plaintiffs in tort lawsuits has grown too large.

In past decades, juries have sought to sufficiently reimburse plaintiffs for

tortious wrongs committed against them, as well as to punish many
defendants for actions the jury considers blatant and egregious. Many
proposed tort reform acts have proven to be ill considered, however, as they
seek to make it more difficult for people to file civil lawsuits, to make it more
difficult for plaintiffs to obtain a jury trial on a civil matter, and to cap the
amount of money plaintiffs can be awarded in various types of civil lawsuits.

While some people consider awards made to certain victorious plaintiffs to be

exorbitant, the truth is, some of these plaintiffs experience seriously increased
costs of living, medical expenses, loss of income, and loss of quality of life,
due to the tortious behaviors of others. An award of damages in the millions of
dollars range may sound like a large award, but when considering it spread
over the plaintiff’s lifetime, it is often merely enough to get by.

Tort Law and Tort Reform Under

Scrutiny
Tort reform has come under public scrutiny, as many people find publicized
awards in civil lawsuits to be shockingly large. One of the most famous tort
lawsuits in recent history in the case of a 79-year old woman who sued
McDonald’s restaurants when she spilled her coffee, and was burned.

Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants

In 1992, 79-year old Stella Liebeck spilled a cup of McDonald’s coffee in her
lap, sustaining third degree burns to both legs. The severity of the full-
thickness burns required skin grafts. This involved stripping skin from other
areas of Liebeck’s body to graft onto the burned areas which were no longer
able to grow skin on their own, leaving her with even more wounds to heal.
When McDonald’s denied Liebeck’s request to pay her medical bills, she filed
a civil lawsuit.

During the course of the case, it was discovered McDonald’s had received
hundreds of other complaints from customers complaining that their coffee
had caused severe burns, and that the corporation’s operations manual
specified the coffee was to be kept at 180-190 degrees Fahrenheit. It is known
and accepted, by the scientific and medical communities, that liquid at that
temperature, if spilled onto a person, causes third degree burns in three to
seven seconds.
A jury awarded Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages to pay for
medical bills and other related expenses. Because it was clear the company
knew its coffee was kept at a dangerously high temperature, and was
therefore likely cause serious injury, the jury also awarded Liebeck $2.7
million in punitive damages, which amounted to the company’s sales revenue
from just two days of coffee sales.
While many proponents of tort reform view this case as a supreme example of
a frivolous lawsuit with a shockingly high award, the truth is, McDonald’s knew
its coffee could cause third degree burns, yet continued to specifically instruct
its restaurant employees to keep and serve it at that temperature. Ms.
Liebeck’s injuries were severe, her painful third degree burns requiring skin
grafts. McDonald’s was given an opportunity to settle the matter out of court,
but they refused to do so.

Ultimately, the judge reduced the amount awarded by the jury to $640,000,
and the case was appealed by McDonald’s, which finally settled for an
undisclosed amount before the appeal concluded. In this case, the current tort
system worked property, as it prompted McDonald’s to settle the case, quite
possibly because of a concern that the award would be boosted back up to
the original amount awarded by the jury.

Related Legal Terms and Issues

 Civil Lawsuit – A lawsuit brought about in court when one person claims
to have suffered a loss due to the actions of another person.
 Criminal Offense – An act committed by an individual that is in violation of
the law, or that poses a threat to the public.
 Damages – A monetary award in compensation for a financial loss, loss of
or damage to personal or real property, or an injury.
 Defendant – A party against whom a lawsuit has been filed in civil court, or
who has been accused of, or charged with, a crime or offense.
 Entity – An individual, company, association, trust, or other organization
that is legally recognized in the eyes of the law. A legal entity is able to
enter into contracts, take on obligations, pay debts, be sued, and be held
responsible for its actions.
 Personal Property – Any item that is moveable and not fixed to real
property.
 Plaintiff – A person who brings a legal action against another person or
entity, such as in a civil lawsuit, or criminal proceedings.
 Punitive Damages – Money awarded to the injured party above and
beyond their actual damages. Punitive damages, also referred to as
“exemplary damages,” are ordered for the purpose of punishing the
wrongdoer for outrageous misconduct in a civil matter.
 Real Property – Land and property attached or fixed directly to the land,
including buildings and structures.