Tort Law: An Injury Lawsuit To Fit Any Situation For Negligence or Wrongdoing

Tort law covers all situations in which someone’s negligence or wrongdoing harms you, either physically or economically. In other words, a tort is someone’s act or omission that amounts to a civil wrong for which the law holds him or her legally accountable. Virtually all lawsuits filed in the U.S. are either contract or tort cases. Torts fall into three categories: intentional torts, unintentional torts, i.e., negligence, and strict liability torts.

The purpose of tort law is to allow injured people to sue the person or entity responsible for their injury. Tort suits are civil suits. This means that the defendant, known as the tortfeasor, does not go to jail if you win your suit. Instead, the court requires him or her to pay you monetary damages to compensate you for the past, present, and future economic expenses and loss of income you sustain as a result of your injury, plus your noneconomic damages, such as pain and suffering.

Intentional Tort Examples

When someone commits an intentional tort, he or she intends to do it and knows or should know that his or her action(s) could injure or otherwise harm you. Examples of intentional torts include assault, battery, defamation, domestic violence, fraud, invasion of privacy, and trespass.

Unintentional Tort Examples

When someone commits an unintentional tort, he or she does not specifically intend to injure or harm you. However, the law deems his or her act(s) or omission(s) to be unreasonably unsafe and do harm to you. Unintentional torts include all of the negligence lawsuits. This includes those for motor vehicle accident injuries, workplace accident injuries, medical or any other type of malpractice injuries by a professional; slip-and-fall injuries; breach of fiduciary responsibility; wrongful death; etc.

Keep in mind that sometimes negligence can be transferred from the actual tortfeasor to someone else. For instance, an employer can be held liable for the unintentional torts his or her employees commit during their employment and within its scope. Parents likewise are usually held accountable for the negligent acts of their children.

Strict Liability Tort Examples

Strict liability torts apply to almost all product liability situations. They do not focus on the who or his or her level of care, but rather on the what. The very fact that you used some company’s product and sustained injury because of your usage is sufficient to file and win a strict liability tort case. The legal term is res ipsa loquitur, meaning the thing speaks for itself. Strict liability tort lawsuits cover such things as exploding tires or airbags, defective drugs, defective medical products, cancer-causing pesticides, etc. The product can be defective because of its design, its manufacture, or its failure to carry a proper warning of hazards its use could pose.

The Legal Process For Tort Law

When your tort lawsuit gets to court, your burden of proof is a preponderance of the evidence. In other words, you will need to present evidence that convinces the jury that the defendant’s act(s) or omission(s) more than likely caused your injury and, therefore, your damages. The specific things you will need to prove will depend on what type of tort action you have brought.

Winning Your Lawsuit For Each Type of Tort

Intentional Tort Lawsuit: you must prove that the defendant knew or should have known that his or her act(s) could cause you harm. They deliberately did it anyhow, and you consequently suffered harm.

Unintentional Tort Lawsuit: you must prove that the defendant owed you a duty of reasonable care. He or she breached that duty and the breach caused your injury.

Strict liability lawsuit: you must prove that the defendant manufactured or sold a defective product. You used it according to its instructions, it injured you, and you did nothing to cause your injury other than use the product.

The state in which you live could reduce the amount of your jury award or even preclude your being able to file a lawsuit. This depends on which contributory or comparative negligence laws that apply for your state.

Contributory negligence means you recognize the risks but choose to proceed anyway. For instance, if you sit directly behind the batter’s box without a protective screen, you likely can’t file a lawsuit if a foul ball or bat hits you.

Comparative negligence, however, acknowledges shared responsibility. If you sue a driver after an accident, but the jury finds you partly at fault, your damages are reduced by the percentage of blame they assign to you.

Why You Need an Experienced Lawyer To Represent You

Torts cover a wide range of acts, making tort lawsuits complex quickly. You need an attorney not only experienced in tort law but also in the specific type of tort involved in your case.

Your lawyer must also be a skilled negotiator. After filing your lawsuit, they’ll first negotiate with the defendant’s insurance company to try for a fair settlement—about 75% of tort cases are resolved this way without trial. If a trial becomes necessary, you’ll want an attorney with solid litigation experience and an assertive courtroom presence to effectively present your case and defend your rights.

Work With an Experienced Local Tort Law Lawyer

Submit a request online today or call us at 866-345-6784 to get in touch with an experienced tort lawyer in your area.

About the Author

Aaron is a professional legal writer with a B.S. in English Education from Southern Illinois University – Carbondale. He has written, published, and edited thousands of legal articles for RequestLegalHelp, which has connected over 5 million people to legal help in the United States.

With over five years of experience writing thousands of legal articles for law firms across the U.S. and Canada, Aaron specializes in covering federal, state, and city-level legal issues ranging from auto accidents to wrongful terminations. Contact Aaron at [email protected] for article suggestions, collaborations, or inquiries.