FACULTY OF LAW

Law of Torts-1
SESSION 2020-2025
Assignment : Constituents of Tort

Submitted to: Submitted by:

Dr. Navneet Kumar Tripathi Akash Yadav
B.A.LL.B.(Hons.)
Semester: 3rd
. 200013015105
. Section-B

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 INDEX

1. Acknowledgment Page 3
2. Introduction Page 4
3. Constituents of Tort Page 4
4. First Constituent of Tort Page 5

5. Injuria sine Damnum Page 7

6. Damnum sine Injuria Page 7

7. Conclusion Page 7

8. Bibliography Page 8

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I’m overwhelmed in all humbleness and gratefulness to acknowledge my depth
to all those who have helped me to put these ideas, well above the level of
simplicity and into something concrete. I would like to express my special thanks
of gratitude to my teacher Dr. Navneet Kumar Tripathi who gave me the golden
opportunity to work on this wonderful project which also helped in doing a lot of
research, and I came to know about so many new things. I am grateful to him.
Thank you.

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 Introduction

Tort is an infringement of an individual’s private or civil rights and a suit being

filed by the injured party.

Tortious Liability = Duty of Care + Breach of Duty + Damage (Causation &

Remoteness)

Duty of Care is owed to claimant by the defendant. Standard of care is required

in a given case and if is not met by the defendant, thus it stands broken. The
breach must result in a loss that is suffered by the plaintiff.

Constituents of Torts
The vested legal right creates a legal duty. Legal rights are the rights that are
conferred by law on a particular party or person. To constitute a tort, the following
two conditions must be met:

 The defendant must have done some act or omission.

 The act or omission should have resulted in legal harm (injuria), i.e.
infringement of the claimant’s legal right.
 The wrongdoing or commission must be of such a nature that a legal
remedy can be found.

First Constituent of Tort

There must be an omission or some act on the part of the defendant.

Illustration: Committing a trespass or publishing a statement, defaming another
person or mistakenly detaining another person, may be liable, as the case may be,
for trespass, defamation or false imprisonment.

Glasgow corporation v. Taylor 1- In this case, a company fails to put proper

fencing in order to keep the children away from a poisonous tree and a child
plucks and eats fruit from the poisonous tree and dies. The company is liable for
such an omission.

Test to ascertain that the committed act is Wrongful

The legal rights of others should not be adversely affected. All infringement of
private rights are therefore enforceable per se, which means that no evidence is

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Glasgow Corporation v Taylor [1922] 1 AC 44

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required. However, violations of public rights are not unless substantial damage
is done to the complainant in addition to the injury to the public.

 Private rights- All rights granted to a particular person excluding the

whole world. Ex: right to property, right to body security, right to
reputation, etc.

Public rights- Rights belonging to society members in general.

In Municipal Corporation of Delhi v. Subhagwanti2, the respondents filed three
suits for damages as heirs of three people who died as a result of the Delhi
Municipal Committee’s collapse of the Clock Tower. The trial court held that it
was the Municipal Committee’s duty to take proper care of buildings so that the
people using the highway as a matter of right could not prove a source of danger.

It was stated, “It is true that the normal rule is that it is for the plaintiff to prove
negligence and not for the defendant to disprove it. But there is an exception to
this rule which applies where the circumstances surrounding the thing which
causes the damage are at the material time exclusively under the control or
management of the defendant or his servant and the happening is such as does
not occur in the ordinary course of things without negligence on the defendant’s
part.”

Second Constituent of Tort

The act or omission should result in legal damage (injuria). “Damage” means
the harm or loss suffered or presumed by someone else as a result of wrongful
act/omission. In all cases of torts, the complainant is required to compulsorily
prove that legal damage has occurred to him as a result of the defendant’s
action/omission. Legal damage is only possible if the complainant’s legal right
has been infringed. Under tort, no action/damage is possible if no legal right is
infringed. The maxim “damnum sine injuria” expresses this proposition. From
the perspective of damage presumption, rights are divided into two categories:

1. Absolute

If an absolute right is infringed, the law definitively presumes damage even if the
wrongdoer has not suffered any loss of money. Violation of absolute law is
enforceable in itself, that is, without any evidence of damage. The presumed

2
Municipal Corporation Of Delhi vs Subhagwanti & Others, 1966 AIR 1750, 1966 SCR (3) 649

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damage is called legal damage. Illustration: right to land infringement is
actionable even if no damage was caused by the infringement.

2. Qualified
There is no presumption of damage in the case of qualified rights, and the
violation of such rights can only be applied on the basis of the proof of damage.
Illustration: If a landlord makes improvements to the property leased without the
right to do so, the landlord is liable for damages, even if the property can be
improved and made more valuable by the changes.

Injuria Sine Damnum

 Injuria means an infringement of a right conferred on the complainant

by law or unauthorized interference with the right of the complainant,
however trivial it may be.
 Damnum means substantial money, comfort, health, loss or damage.
Sine means without.
Thus, injuria sine damnum means an infringement of the law without causing the
plaintiff any harm, loss or damage.

In Ashby v. White 3, the complainant was a qualified voter. The defendant, a

returning officer wrongly declined to take the vote of the complainant. The
Plaintiff had suffered no damage as the candidate he wanted to vote for, won the
election. The Court of King’s Bench by majority rejected the claim.

Holt C. J. dissented: “Surely every injury imports a damage, though it does not
cost the other party one farthing, and it is impossible, to prove the contrary; for a
damage is not merely pecuniary but an injury imports a damage, when a man is
thereby hindered of his rights.”

On Appeal to the House of Lords, the majority upheld Holt C. J.‟s dissent. The
defendant was held liable.

In Bhim Singh v. State of J. & K, the petitioner, a Jammu & Kashmir M.L.A., was
wrongly arrested by the police while attending the session of the assembly. In
addition, he was not produced within the required period before the Magistrate.
As a result, he was deprived of his constitutional right to attend the session of the
Assembly. The fundamental right to personal freedom guaranteed under Article

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Ashby v. White, (1703) 92 ER 126

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21 of the Constitution had been violated. By the time the Supreme Court ruled on
the petition, Bhim Singh had been released, but exemplary damages amounting
to Rs. 50,000 were granted by way of consequential relief.

Damnum Sine Injuria

 Damnum means substantial damage, loss or damage to money, comfort,

health or the like.
 Sine means without.
 Injuria means an infringement of the right conferred on the plaintiff by
law or unauthorized interference, as trivial as it may be, with the right
of the plaintiff.
Thus, damnum sine injuria means damage not accompanied by unauthorized
interference with the lawful right of the plaintiff.

Gloucester Grammar School Case - Because of some dispute, the defendant, a

schoolmaster, established a rival school for the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs had to
reduce their fees because of the competition. Thus, the compensation for the loss
caused was claimed. It was held that there was no remedy for the loss suffered by
the complainants.

Mogul Steamship Co. v. McGregor Gow and Co4- A number of steamship

companies combined and expelled the plaintiff from the tea-carrying trade by
offering lower freight. The House of Lords held that the complainant had no
cause for action since the defendants had acted legally to protect and extend their
trade and increase their profits.

Acton v. Blundell - In this case, in the usual manner, the defendant (a landowner)
carried out the mining operations on his field. He finally drained water from
another owner’s (plaintiff’s) land through which the water flowed into his well in
a subterranean course. It was ruled that the defendant was not required to pay any
damages to the plaintiff because the defendant was not involved in any
infringement of the plaintiff’s right and that the defendant was fully entitled to
use the water for the purposes of his mining.

Mayor & Co. of Bradford v. Pickles5 - Bradford Corporation provided water from
its well. The adjacent land belonged to the defendant (Pickles) to the land from
which the Bradford Corporation supplied the water and dug a well. Bradford
4
Mogul Steamship Co Ltd v McGregor Gow & Co (1889) 23 Q.B.D. 598
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Mayor & Co. of Bradford v. Pickles, [1895] A.C. 587

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Corporation argued that the defendant dug well into his own land, thereby cutting
the corporation’s underground water supply well. This had caused a corporate
monetary loss because the people who lived under the Corporation’s jurisdiction
did not have adequate water supply to discharge. Bradford Corporation sued
Pickles for damages.

It was ruled that the defendant is not liable because the defendant’s act was not
unlawful because it had not infringed the law.

Conclusion
Tort law is fashioned as “an instrument for adhering to a conduct of reasonable
conduct and respecting one another’s rights and interests.” This is done by
protecting interests and providing situations where a person whose protected
interest is violated can recover compensation from the person who has violated
the same for the loss suffered by him.

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 Bibliography

Websites:

 https://lexpeeps.in/constituents-of-law-of-tort/
 https://licitgist.in/constituents-of-tort/

Books:

 Law of Torts – Dr. R.K. Bangia