A tort is defined as “a wrongful act or an infringement of a right (other than under contract)

leading to civil legal liability.” A tort occurs when a person wrongs someone else in a way
that exposes the offender to legal liability. This harm doesn’t always occur because someone
intentionally sets out to harm another person on purpose. Rather, a person can commit a tort
by acting negligently or failing to act appropriately. In addition, in some types of tort cases,
an actor is strictly liable for the damages they cause even when they are as careful as
possible.

Tort law determines whether a person should be held legally accountable for an injury against
another, as well as what type of compensation the injured party is entitled to. In tort lawsuits,
the injured party—referred to as the “plaintiff” in civil cases (comparable to the prosecutor in
a criminal case)—seeks compensation, typically through the representation of a personal
injury attorney, from the “defendant” for damages incurred (i.e. harm to property, health, or
well-being).

The 4 elements to every successful tort case are: duty, breach of duty, causation and injury.
For a tort claim to be well-founded, there must have been a breach of duty made by the
defendant against the plaintiff, which resulted in an injury.

Examples and Types of Torts

Tort lawsuits are the biggest category of civil litigation and can encompass a wide range of
personal injury cases. However, there are 3 main types: intentional torts, negligence, and
strict liability. In Colorado, each specific tort has its own list of elements under the law that
create subtle but important distinctions when proving that compensation is owed.

Intentional torts
An intentional tort is when an individual or entity purposely engages in conduct that causes
injury or damage to another. For example, striking someone in a fight would be considered an
intentional act that would fall under the tort of battery; whereas accidentally hitting another
person would not qualify as “intentional” because there was no intent to strike the individual
(however, this act may be considered negligent if the person hit was injured). Although it
may seem like an intentional tort can be categorized as a criminal case, there are important
differences. A crime can be defined as a wrongful act that injures or interferes with the
interests of society. In comparison, intentional torts are wrongful acts that injure or interfere
with an individual’s well-being or property. While criminal charges are brought by the
government and can result in a fine or jail sentence, tort charges are filed by a plaintiff
seeking monetary compensation for damages that the defendant must pay if they lose.
Sometimes a wrongful act may be both a criminal and tort case. A victim can typically
recover more financial damages from a civil case than a criminal case.

Examples of intentional torts

Assault
Battery
False imprisonment
Conversion
Intentional infliction of emotional distress
Fraud/deceit
Trespass (to land and property)
Defamation

Negligence
There is a specific code of conduct that every person is expected to follow, and a legal duty
of the public to act a certain way in order to reduce the risk of harm to others. Failure to
adhere to these standards is known as negligence. Negligence is by far the most common type
of tort.

Unlike intentional torts, negligence cases do not involve deliberate actions. Negligence
occurs when a person fails to act carefully enough and another person gets hurt as a result.
For this type of case, a person must owe a duty to another person. Then, they must fail in
their duty to act reasonably. Finally, that failure must result in harm and damages. For
example, a driver on the road has a duty to drive at a reasonable speed. If a driver travels 20
miles over the speed limit, they have acted negligently. If they hit someone and hurt them,
they have committed a negligence tort and likely owe the victim for their losses. Another
common example of negligence torts are cases of slip and fall, which occur when a property
owner fails to act as a reasonable person would, thus resulting in harm to the visitor or
customer. For example, a janitor has a duty to put up a wet floor sign after mopping. If he or
she fails to put up the sign and someone falls and injures themselves, a negligence tort case
may be filed.

Examples of negligence torts

Slip and fall accidents
Car accidents
Truck accidents
Motorcycle accidents
Pedestrian accidents
Bicycle accidents
Medical malpractice

Strict liability

Lastly, there are torts involving strict liability. Strict, or “absolute,” liability applies to cases
where responsibility for an injury can be imposed on the wrongdoer without proof of
negligence or direct fault. If a case is a strict liability tort, the victim has a right to recover
even if the responsible party took every precaution and didn’t hurt them intentionally. The
only thing the victim must prove is that they were hurt because of the other person’s actions.
What matters is that an action occurred and resulted in the eventual injury of another person.

In lawsuits such as these, the injured consumer only has to establish that their injuries were
directly caused by the product in question in order to have the law on their side. The fact that
the company did not “intend” for the consumer to be injured is not a factor. Defective product
and dog bite cases are prime examples of when liability is maintained despite intent.

Examples of strict liability torts

Defective products (Product Liability)

Animal attacks (dog bite lawsuits)
Abnormally dangerous activities

Functions of tort
Throughout its long history, tort has pursued different aims: punishment, appeasement,
deterrence, compensation, and efficient loss spreading of the cost of accidents. None offers a
complete justification; all are important, though at different stages one may have been more
prominent than the rest.

Punishment and appeasement

Originally, tort and criminal law were indistinguishable, and, even when the two branches
began to acquire independent identities, the former remained for a very long time in the
shadow of the latter. Offenses against the community and the king’s interests increasingly
became the subject of criminal law, whereas wrongs against the individual came to be dealt
with by the emerging law of torts. Early tort law, however, was concerned only with the most
serious kinds of wrongs—bodily injury, damage to goods, and trespass to land. Not until the
19th century was it extended to cover such conduct as intentional infliction of economic loss.
In the 20th century the compensation of negligently inflicted economic loss and other
violations of subtler interests (such as psychological injuries and violations of privacy) took
centre stage in the wider debate that aimed to set the proper boundaries of tort liability. On a
contrary punishment and appeasement are no longer major aims of tort law.

Deterrence
Aims at reducing the number of accidents by imposing a heavy financial cost on unsafe
conduct. A distinction is necessary between specific and general deterrence. The former
depends largely on the admonitory. This deterrent element, however, almost completely
evaporates in the case of traffic accidents, where harm is statistically inevitable and in most
cases results from momentary inattention, the occurrence of which no tort award can ever
prevent.

In order to prove negligence and claim damages, a claimant has to prove a number of
elements to the court.

These are:
1.the defendant owed them a duty of care
2. the defendant breached that duty of care, and
3. they suffered loss or damage as a direct consequence of the breach.
Even if negligence is proved, the defendant may have a defence that protects them from
liability, or reduces the amount of damages they are liable for.

Element 1 – The duty of care

the concept of a duty of care . The House of Lords stated that every person owes a duty of
care to their neighbour. The Lords went on to explain that ‘neighbour’ actually means
‘persons so closely and directly affected by my act that I ought reasonably to have them in
contemplation as being so affected’. This is a very wide (and complicated) definition that
could include almost anyone – if still in operation today the courts would most certainly be
overrun with cases.

this mean Mr wankeka you’ll agree that owes mr techno and the community a duty of care.
There is sufficient proximity ie it is reasonably foreseeable that a collision between the cars
could cause Tecno some injury, and it seems fair, just and reasonable for You mr wankeka to
owe a duty of care to Tecno and the community (and indeed all other road users).
Proximity simply means that the parties must be ‘sufficiently close’ so that it is ‘reasonably
foreseeable’ that one party’s negligence would cause loss or damage to the other. Fairness
means that it is ‘fair, just and reasonable’ for one party to owe the duty to another.

Element 2 – breach of duty of care

In many cases brought before the courts it is evident that a duty of care exists between the
defendant and the claimant. The real issue is whether or not the actions of the defendant were
sufficient to meet their duty. To determine this, the court will set the standard of care that
they should have met. This standard consists of the actions which the court considers a
‘reasonable person’ would have taken in the circumstances. If the defendant failed to act
reasonably given their duty of care, then they will be found to have breached it.

This ‘reasonable’ standard may be adjusted given the actual circumstances of the case. For
example, if the claimant is vulnerable, such as being disabled or frail, it is reasonable to
expect the defendant to have paid them special attention or taken extra care over them as
compared to someone who is fit and healthy.

Element 3 – loss or damage as a result of the breach

In this element the claimant simply has to prove that the loss or damage was a direct
consequence of the defendant’s breach of duty of care. In other words that there is a chain of
causality from the defendant’s actions to the claimant’s loss or damage. A simple test, called
the ‘but for’ test is applied. All the claimant has to prove is that if it were not ‘but for’ the
actions of the defendant then they would not have suffered the loss or damage. Where there is
more than one possible cause of the loss or damage, the defendant will only be liable if it can
be proved that their actions are the most likely cause.