Torts-I

Tort

 “Civil wrong Independent of contract”.

Law of tort or Law of torts

 Winfield’s theory
 All wrongful acts that cause an injury fall under the ambit of tort law
 New torts may emerge and each existing tort will be of a very wide scope
 Salmond’s theory
 Pigeon-hole theory
 Relief under tort law should only be awarded if a case fits one of the pigeon-holes or a labeled
tort
 A wrongful act will only be regarded as a tort if it fits an already recognized tort
 There is no room for new torts

 See the shared article link

Categories of Torts

 Intentional torts
 (e.g., intentionally hitting a person)
 Intentional torts are wrongs that the defendant knew or should have known would result through
his or her actions or omissions.
 Negligent torts
 (e.g., causing an accident by failing to obey traffic rules);
 Negligent torts occur when the defendant's actions were unreasonably unsafe.
 Strict liability torts
 (e.g., liability for making and selling defective products)
 In these torts, the only relevant question is, if harm was manifested or not.
Tort and Wrongs

 A wrong involves the breach of a legal duty

 There can be two forms of wrong
 Private Wrongs
 One person
 e.g defamation
 Public Wrongs
 Affecting public at large
 e.g destroying the habitat of an endangered species
Victim

 The general rule

 Only a victim may ask for damages
 Gullible friends problem
 Palsgraf v Long Island Railroad (1928)
 Bourhill v Young (1943)
 Exceptions:
 Wrongful death cases
The two tort models

 The loss compensation model

 Lord Bingham:
 ‘The overall object of tort law is to define cases in which the law may justly hold one
party liable to compensate another.’
 Criticisms
 It ignores the non-compensatory remedies that are available in tort cases e.g an injunction.
 It does not account for the existence of torts that are actionable per se: that is, torts that can be
committed without causing anyone else any loss
 It’s non-conformative, our idea of torts involves wrong being to someone.
Residual wrongs model

 “tort law is made up of all civil wrongs that are not dealt with under some other area of
law”.
 No function but is to provide us with a title under which we can group the civil wrongs that are
left over once we deduct the civil wrongs that we can make sense of as belonging to some
determinate area of law such as the law of contract, or the law of equity.
 McBride disagrees