Tort consists of an incident wherein individual, not a state or governmental body, is harmed and legal action is pursued by the injured party against the party who caused the harm. In contrast to criminal law, a tort seeks monetary compensation for damages to an injured party.
Understanding a tort requires study of intentional torts, privileges, negligence, cause-in-fact, proximate cause, defenses, joint and several liability, damages, strict liability, products liability, economic torts, malicious prosecution, abuse of process, defamation and invasion of privacy. Some of these topics generate controversy and confusion, and therefore a great deal of time is spent arguing the fine points of the defenses to intentional torts.
Torts involve intentional actions, seeking to interfere with a person or their property, or an unintentional harming of a person or property when seeking to harm another. The defendant may plead that the intent of the action was not meant to harm another, but it was a mistake that the harmful action took place. Another defense is insanity or infancy.
Battery is one of the harmful actions which the defendant perpetrates, consisting on an act intentionally meant to harm or offend the plaintiff. If done accidentally, then it must be analyzed to see if it was negligent or if the defendant was liable (meant to harm). The harm may be done through another and the defendant is still the perpetrator or cause of the harm. Assault is similar to Battery in that the harm was meant to be done to the plaintiff, but in Assault, the victim perceives beforehand that there is an "offensive contact" about to occur.
Other types of tort actions against a plaintiff consist of false imprisonment (confinement or restraint of the victim), trespassing with intent to damage property, deliberately inflicting mental distress (mental abuse) in which the victim may or may not demonstrate physical evidence of such distress.
Torts have many defenses for the defendant and are difficult to prove in many cases. However if the plaintiff can prove that the defendant "desires or is substantially certain the elements of the tort will occur," then the defendant will be able to win his or her case (Torts, 2009).
References
Torts, (2009). LexisNexis Capsule Summary. Reviewed July 1, 2009 at 1:00 P.M. At http://www.lexisnexis.com/lawschool/study/outlines/word/torts.doc.
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