WHAT IS A TORT?

A tort is an act or omission, other than a breach of contract, which gives rise to injury or harm to another, and amounts to a civil wrong for which courts impose liability. In other words, a wrong has been committed and the remedy is money damages to the person wronged.

There are three types of tort actions; negligence, intentional torts, and strict liability. The elements of each are slightly different. However, the process of litigating each of them is basically the same.

WHAT IS THE STANDARD OF PROOF IN A CIVIL TORT CASE?

As discussed in Chapter 2, there are different standards of proof for criminal and civil cases. Within civil cases there are also two different standards of proof. For civil tort cases, the standard of proof is preponderance of the evidence. Preponderance of the evidence means that it is more likely than not that the defendant is legally responsible for the plaintiff’s injuries. If the plaintiff proves their case by more than 50 percent of the evidence, the jury must come back with a verdict in favor of the plaintiff.

NEGLIGENCE:

Negligence is the most common of tort cases. At its core negligence occurs when a tortfeasor, the person responsible for committing a wrong, is careless and therefore responsible for the harm this carelessness caused to another.

There are four elements of a negligence case that must be proven for a lawsuit to be successful. All four elements must exist and be proven by a plaintiff. The failure to prove any one of these four elements makes a lawsuit in negligence deficient. The four elements are:

• Duty

• Breach

• Causation

• Harm

A basic negligence lawsuit would require a person owing a duty to another person, then breaching that duty, with that breach being the cause of the harm to the other person.