What Does "Tort Law" Mean in the Legal Industry?

Tort law represents a type of law that compensates victims of negligence or recklessness. It is one of the main categories of law, along with the contract, criminal, and real property law. Victims of a personal injury incident file tort claims with the clerk of a civil court to initiate the legal process. The word “tort” has its roots in both French and Latin, with the broad meaning to be “wrong.” In legal cases, tort means causing a wrongful injury to another person.

Tort law does not mean every case involves a defendant that assumes legal liability for causing a wrongful injury. This category of law also includes cases in which the court does not assign fault, such as injuries caused by a defective product. The manufacturer did not know the product had flaws that could harm someone. As the largest category of law, tort law covers three types of litigation: Negligence, intentional, and strict liability.

For a personal injury case, the attorney representing the plaintiff must prove the existence of four elements.

Duty of Care

Duty of care refers to the legal responsibility one party has to ensure the safety of another party. Sometimes, the law defines the duty of care, such as every driver of a motor vehicle has a duty of care to stop at a stop sign. For other types of tort cases, the duty of care is not as easy to define. The personal injury lawyer you work with from Morgan & Morgan might have to prove duty of care by arguing the defendant violated the common knowledge of care that is associated with a set of circumstances.

Breaching Duty of Care

Breaching duty of care means the party committing a wrongful act that caused someone harm failed to meets the standards the law establishes for duty of care. A violation of duty of care can be either intentional or negligent. An example of an intentional breach of duty of care is when a defendant purposely violates a statute. A motorist who fails to yield commits an act of negligence if the motorist did not see the other car approaching and the negligence causes an auto collision.

Causation

The third element to prove for a tort case is proving the other party caused your injuries. Proving causation is not as simple as it first appears. Let’s say a motorist sustains a neck injury caused by the negligent actions of another driver. If the injured motorist already suffered from an injured neck, proving causation might be difficult to do. The key for a personal injury attorney is to demonstrate how the auto accident caused the neck injury.

Financial Losses

An injured plaintiff can prove the first three elements of a tort case and still lose a court battle for monetary damages. This is because the plaintiff failed to show the personal injury incident produced financial losses. For a judge to award monetary damages, you must present evidence such as medical bills that confirm how much money you lost because of a personal injury incident.

If you had to define negligence in one word, the word should be recklessness. A negligent act does not mean the other party wanted to hurt you. Instead, proving negligence requires your personal injury lawyer to show the other party acted carelessly, which caused you harm. As the most common form of tort, negligence covers personal injury incidents such as slip and falls, medical malpractice, and motor vehicle accidents.

Someone who commits an act on purpose that harms another party has committed an intentional tort. For instance, one party sustained injuries that were caused by a car accident. After an investigation, the official police report concludes the other party sped up on purpose to cut off the driver who sustained injuries. Another example of an intentional tort concerns the invasion of someone’s privacy. Winning an intentional tort case is more difficult than winning a negligence tort case because the plaintiff’s personal injury attorney must prove motive.

Strict liability tort cases involve assigning responsibility for someone’s injuries, without having to prove negligence or intentional fault. The most common type of strict liability torts is product liability cases in which the manufacturer sold a defective product that hurt a consumer. For a product liability case, an injured consumer only has to prove the product caused the consumer’s injuries. Lack of intent is not a factor in the awarding of monetary damages. A manufacturer automatically assumes strict liability once a product reaches the consumer market.

The answer to the question, “What does tort law mean in law, ” also includes a legal action called a mass tort. Mass torts represent legal actions that involve a class of plaintiffs that file one civil lawsuit for the same type of personal injury incident. Instead of a wrongful act committed against just one plaintiff, a mass tort demonstrates the defendant committed one or more wrongful actions that harmed several people.

Mass tort actions help individuals get justice against much more powerful and influential defendants. Two of the mass torts Morgan & Morgan have worked on involve the paraquat and talcum powder mass torts.

The primary goal of a personal injury lawyer litigating a tort case is to negotiate a favorable financial settlement or win a judgment issued by a judge for monetary damages. Personal injury attorneys argue cases for three types of compensation.

Economic Damages

Also called special compensatory damages, economic damages recover the costs that are connected to a personal injury tort case. The most common type of economic damages awarded for personal injury cases is medical bills. Diagnostic tests, treatment programs, and rehabilitation sessions can rack up medical bills that run into several thousand dollars. To receive approval for economic damages, you must present copies of medical bills that include the cost of medications and the use of assistive advice. Economic damages also cover lost wages.

Non-Economic Damages

Non-economic damages do not come with a price tag. Instead, your personal injury lawyer argues you suffered from pain and suffering, which can include acute anxiety and prolonged depression. Some types of personal injury incidents, such as a car accident, can leave long-term scars that negatively impact the quality of life. The personal injury attorney you work with from Morgan & Morgan calculates non-economic damages based on a formula that includes the value of economic damages.

Punitive Damages

Judges mostly award punitive damages for intentional tort cases, although a severely damaging act of negligence might prompt a judge to award punitive damages to a plaintiff. Punitive damages typically punish a plaintiff for committing an intentional act that harmed another person. One of the purposes of awarding punitive damages is to deter the defendant from committing the same intentional act again. Judges often award punitive damages for mass tort cases to penalize corporations that have deep pockets.

Proving another party harmed you requires the expertise of an experienced tort attorney. Lawyers that have just earned a license to practice law do not have the experience to handle complex tort cases, especially mass tort cases. An experienced tort attorney knows how to calculate a fair value for a settlement, as well as negotiate with the other party’s legal counsel.

You also want to hire a tort attorney who specializes in the type of tort law that concerns your case. For example, if you sustained injuries from a slip and fall, you want to work with a lawyer from Morgan & Morgan who specializes in slip and fall tort cases. A slip and fall case introduces several different factors than the factors that make a strong car accident lawsuit.

Because a tort case can get complex, the legal counsel you work with must be a responsive communicator. This means your legal counsel must return all forms of communications promptly. You can test the responsiveness of a lawyer by leaving a couple of phone messages before you attend a free case evaluation.

The answer to the question, “What does tort law mean in law,” is it has several different meanings depending on the type of case. Regardless of the type of tort case, you should act with a sense of urgency to receive just compensation. Every state has established a statute of limitations for the filing of a civil lawsuit. 

Take action today by scheduling a free case evaluation with one of the tort attorneys at Morgan & Morgan.