法律英语专题：侵权法(tort law)

Tort Law

General

Torta civil wrong which unfairly causes someone else to suffer loss or harm ★It does not include breach of contract or trust. (A civil wrong can be a tort, breach of contract or breach of trust.)

Purpose of tort law

to provide relief to the injured party through the award of damages for the injuries incurred during a tortious act

General

to deter others from committing the same act Tort law in the U. S. is largely common law.

US tort law

Courts have the power to shape and change the elements of claims and defenses of existing torts and the power to create new torts.

Statutes have been passed in attempts to ‘reform’ the tort system.

General

Most of them have related to procedural matters and amounts and categories of damages.

Many judges utilize the Restatement of Torts (2nd) as an influential guide.

The Restatement is an influential treatise issued by the American Law Institute, which summarizes the general principles of common law United States tort law.

Categories of torts

intentional torts

General

negligence strict liability torts

Intentional Torts

General

Definition

An intentional tort is a tort resulting from an intentional act on the part of the tortfeasor. torts against the personassault battery false imprisonment intentional infliction of emotional distress

Subcategories

General

property tortstrespass to land trespass to chattels (personal property) conversion

dignitary tortsdefamation invasion of privacy

Torts Against the Person

Assault

Definitionan intentional act that causes an apprehension of immediate harmful or offensive contact ★Apprehension is not the same as fear— here it means awareness that an injury or offensive contact is imminent.

Requirements

The act must be overt.

Mere words do not constitute an assault.

Assault

There must be an accompanying act.

The defendant must have the apparent ability to carry out the contact.

Actual ability to carry out the contact is not necessary.

The plaintiff must have a reasonable apprehension of such contact.

Actual fear on the plaintiff’s part is not required.

Examples

Assault

swinging a baseball bat at someone holding a rock and threatening to throw it at someone pointing a gun at someone pointing a realistic toy gun at someone Criminal assault can occur even when no threat is perceived by the victim. With the tort of assault, a perceived threat by the victim is paramount.

Criminal assault and tortious assault

Assault*A defendant who throws a rock at a sleeping victim and misses can only be guilty of the attempted battery assault, since the victim would not be aware of the possible harm.

Battery

Definition

an intentional act that causes a harmful or offensive contact contact that objec

tively intends to injure, disfigure, impair, or cause pain contact that would offend a person’s sense of personal dignity

‘Harmful’ contact

‘Offensive’ contact

Battery

Examples

beating someone with a tire iron spitting in someone's face knocking a hat off someone's head whipping a horse on which someone was riding, causing him to fall and be injured mixing something offensive in food that he knows another will eat—the other does in fact eat the offensive matter

Battery

digging a pit with the intent that another will fall into it later—the other does in fact fall into it

Criminal and tortious battery

Usually battery is prosecuted as a crime only in cases involving serious harm to the victim.Criminal law recognizes degrees of crimes involving physical contact. There is but a single tort of battery.