Talk:Tort

message: Does the concept of a tort exist in non-common law systems?  If not, the article should mention that torts are a common-law-only concept in the first paragraph.  If there's a law of torts in the civil law system, the article should be retitled to make it clear that it is only about torts under common law. Elliotreed 05:01, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure.  I vaguely recall that civil law tends to focus on something called the law of obligations, which has significant overlap with both tort and contract.  That is, you have obligations which you expressly negotiated (contract) and obligations to all others as a whole (tort).  Does anyone know more about civil law?  --Coolcaesar 05:36, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, of course, there is tort everywhere. I suppose if you think about it, if a legal system didn't have tort then chinashop keepers would be pretty powerless against bull owners. The French call a tort délit (or responsabilité civile délictuelle), and the Germans call tort law "Deliktsrecht" or "unerlaubte Handlungen" (unallowed behaviour) - Para. 823 BGB. There is a link for German and Spanish tort law already, which you can see. I'm adding one for the French. Wikidea 07:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm currently following a course of comparative tort law at the Leiden University as part of my study. While tort is an english word the concept is definitely not exclusive to common-law countries. Different countries provide different solutions to the problem, some with open systems some closed. For instance the French have a very open system while the English use only nominate torts. English Tort Law could be a subsection of Tort. I think however that the article on English Tort Law could be much expanded and then merit its own page. myfavoritetort 14:17, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Given this discussion I am adding a worldwide view tag and adding it to the systemic bias wikiproject. Elliotreed (talk) 19:54, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that's a good idea.  We already have an article on the related but distinct civil law concept, delict.  There are a LOT of differences between tort law and delict, which is why they need to be kept separate.  Tort is inherently associated with the common law.  A lot of delict appears to be limited to what common law lawyers call statutory torts, but tort law in common law countries is much larger than just the category of statutory torts.  Tort evolves much more rapidly than delict, particularly in the U.S. where there is the federal judiciary, 50 state supreme courts and several territorial courts tugging tort law in all directions on a daily basis.  --Coolcaesar (talk) 06:42, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Torts in civil law? 

message: "But this cartel was ruled lawful and "nothing more [than] a war of competition waged in the interest of their own trade."
Under US Law, corporations can engage in cartels for the purpose of exports. Ergo, price fixing by a cartel of exporters would be considered legal in the US. I'm sure there are minutae as to why this would be illegal now, but the prima facie claim is inaccurate. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.215.229.210 (talk) 00:11, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not True 

message: Please note that the site http://www.infowikis.com/tort.htm
is pretending to be a wiki and once you try to edit it it edits wikipedia.
Can anyone do something to stop this?
84.229.246.201 08:48, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: as of 2010-07-30 it is only a domain squatterYitscar (talk) 13:16, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  alert spam 

message: "Tort is a legal term in common law jurisdictions that means a civil wrong, and can be a criminal wrong, that is recognized by law as grounds for a lawsuit." This just doesn't make sense, can someone correct it? "and can be" is clearly wrong, but I think 'means a civil wrong that is' could be made a bit more formal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.67.10.62 (talk) 00:30, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Syntax 

message: These two ideas directly contradict one another! If it has been replaced by comparative negligence then it is not a complete defense!
In all but four states in the US, if the defendant proves both that the plaintiff/claimant also acted negligently and that this negligence contributed to the loss or damage suffered, this is a complete defence.
This doctrine has been widely criticized as draconian, in that a plaintiff whose fault was comparatively minor might recover nothing from a more egregiously irresponsible defendant. In all but four US states, it has been replaced judicially or legislatively by the doctrine of comparative negligence.
:I think what is meant is that contributory negligence is a complete defense in those four states; it no longer exists in the other 46. Cheers! bd2412 T 17:21, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is still very unclear and on first reading appears to be contradictory. It could do with being re-written. 78.146.72.108 (talk) 14:08, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

text: It's simple. A state can either be contributory negligence, pure comparative negligence, or partial comparative negligence. In pure contributory negligence states, of which there are only 4, it is a complete bar to recovery as an affirmative defense. In Pure comparative negligence states, there is no contributory negligence defense, it does not exist. The amount of your recovery will be reduced by your % of fault. In partial comparative negligence states, up to a certain percentage of fault results in a reduction in recovery (like normal comparative negligence) but over that percentage of fault results in a complete bar to recovery (like contributory). Usually that number is 51%. So think of it like this: what percentage of fault do you have to have to be completely barred from recovering? In contributory negligence it's only 1%. In partial comparative negligence, it's some arbitrary number usually around 51%. In pure comparative negligence, it is 100%. Does that make sense? ⇒SWATJester Son of the Defender 18:19, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contributory negligence 

message: Might as well change the heading of this entry to Tort As Applied To The USA. Its not only that it might not apply Internationally it simply doesn't. This is not a criticism of the authors but this really does need to be noted. Really2012back (talk) 06:35, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: When somebody starts adding French/German/any other legal system's way of doing things, then it'll be welcomed! Would you like to start? Wikidea 10:07, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  American Law 

message: Does anyone with an ideological or material stake in wikipedia or the content of this article have any objection to me rewriting the introduction? Mainly, I wish to...
: (a)replace the existing examples, which are (a) purely hypothetical and (b) conclusory, with a few short sentences taking the facts of an actual case. I feel this will better introduce the reader to the "basic ideas" of tort law, without making it too "law school;"
: (b) clean up the way the various "legally-protected interests" and "theories of recovery" are presented
: (c) mention the key philosophical issues;
... all of which are disussed in greater depth in the rest of the article and in their own main-articles; You can see a rough idea of my proposal in the edit history. My first proposal involved moving the example from the middle of the first paragraph to the beginning, which is apparently controversial.
I am not wedded to that order. I think the current introduction is readible at first, but progressively less organized, and somewhat inaccurate. My proposed changes will make the article more informative, and of course, once their made, anyone else can improve them in any way they see fit! Any objections fromt he community? Non Curat Lex (talk) 19:19, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This is the edit in question. I think it reads better as it is, without the change. Enigma msg! 19:41, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thank you for providing us with that helpful link. Non Curat Lex (talk) 20:07, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'd like to see if Enigmaman will accept something along the lines of what I wrote, with declaratives first and with examples second or without introductory examples at all? If example are the hangup, I can go without. One thing there does seem to be a consensus on is that the examples we have now should go. Non Curat Lex (talk) 23:07, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: (ec)This is not about me. You may think whatever of me, I do have a background in law. However, I choose not to get involved in the project or in the discussions centering around it. My issue was just a very general matter about using edit summaries and building a consensus before overhauling an article. This is common policy. It's also not about what I would accept. What we're dealing with here is what Wikipedia would accept, more specifically, what the editors who concern themselves with this article would accept. If you get support, and you get what you feel is a consensus, go right ahead and make your changes again. I won't stop you. Enigma msg! 00:38, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sorry, I may have missed this. As for using edit summaries - I sometimes forget, and it's a bad habit. So are typos. I make a few of those too here and there. I'd like to think that there are more important things. As for "overhauling the article" - that seems a little exaggerated to me, but, fine, let's say that is the case. Are we really presuming that all overhauls are bad?Non Curat Lex (talk) 01:10, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

text:  No one has spoken up on that yet, but people do seem to be hung up on how I opened. So I have proposed a new version that responds to some of my legitimate concerns, hopefully in a less controversial way. Non Curat Lex (talk) 00:37, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

text:  I think there are lots of good, valid changes in the big edit, but it definitely suffers from some significant style issues. Try changing it in smaller sections and keep the general style/feel intact. Unclewalrus (talk) 00:50, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  That's what I will try to do. Otherwise, people may get hung up on the boldness of the opening I proposed, which really wasn't the most important thing. Hopefully I won't be ruffling any more feathers by making an edit so soon. Non Curat Lex (talk) 01:05, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Good on you Non Curat Lex! It reads well. My rushed attempted to write something before was pretty bad, and I think you've broken it up in a nice way. Furthermore, it isn't bold at all, and I think it looks like you know something, so go for it and be really bold in future. Wikidea 02:59, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Editing the Introduction 

message: I see a lot of changing from American to British to American to British English on this page (and many other law pages in particular).  I believe based the spelling of government in  this edit that this article was established as being in American English per the WP:Manual of style.  Thoughts?--Doug.(talk • contribs) 17:31, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If Americans spell "government" differently as well, then literacy is even worse across the pond than I thought. :) Wikidea 09:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  American vs. British English 

message: The article is written from a UK perspective; swaths of important tort law are omitted because they are American in nature.  (For example, product liability gets next to no mention and is inaccurately characterized as a "statutory tort.")  Large sections of the article are unsourced opinion. THF (talk) 12:51, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  OR and globalize tags 

message: This has to do with the article itself, not the legal matters it describes. To me it seems as if there are a few too many linked words in the article (especially the introduction). I think the article would read a lot better if some of the less essential links were removed, and only the terms that the average person might not understand left linked. For example, while the average person may not know the full legal meaning behind the word "accident", they would at least understand enough about what an accident is to realize what the sentence is saying.
Also, terms do not need to be linked each time they are used. Link important terms at first use, after that it can be assumed that the person either already understands the word, or has followed the link to find the meaning.
- The.Nethos (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 12:38, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Readibility changes... 

message: In the english legal system does a breach of statutory obligation give rise to an action in tort, where the statute is silent?  I would really like to get some views on this  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nufs (talk • contribs) 19:18, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The answer is "not automatically".  See particularly X v Bedfordshire, Capital & Counties v Hampshire and Roe v Sheffield. Tevildo (talk) 22:33, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tort: Breach of Statutory duty  

message: Presumably Donoghue v. Stevenson began as a case of delict, the somewhat different equivalent of tort in Scots law. Shouldn't we note this, and clarify the relationship of these legal systems as much as possible? . . dave souza, talk 13:48, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that's really necessary as D v S is authority in English Law (as well as Scots Law) for the principles of negligence i.e. it's relevance here is only in relation to English (and Commonwealth) tort law not for the Scots law of delict. (infact they are, as far as I am aware, identical) However, its mention is very strangely written. It's more than a "well-known case" it's the founding case of English, Scots and Commonwealth Law of negligence. The section should also mention MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co. which is the founding case for the US law of negligence (and which D v S cited) DeCausa (talk) 14:31, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: In , the advocate Peter McCormack writes; "Broadly it is the Scottish equivalent of the English law of tort. The background and details of the Scots law of delict and the English law of tort are different in too many respects to mention here. They broadly cover the same ground, with the Scottish law concentrating more on general principle and less on specific wrongs than the English law." So, not "identical"; I've modified the brief mention in the list here to make that clearer. Your proposal for revising D v S looks sensible. . . dave souza, talk 19:08, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: No - maybe I wasn't clear. Tort and delict are indeed different. And there is a separate article to cover that so there is no need to cover it here - this article is only about tort. I merely meant that Scots law of negligence and English law of negligence are the same. DeCausa (talk) 00:59, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Delict?

message: I've been doing some heavy editing of this article lately.Any feedback or questions is welcome. I still need to work on a "Relationship to other law" section (with criminal law as one subset) and rework the lead. II | (t - c) 18:07, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Feedback welcome 

message: There is a serious problem with "Sometimes a plaintiff may prevail in a tort case even if the person who caused the harm was acquitted in an earlier criminal trial. For example, O.J. Simpson was acquitted in criminal court and later found liable for the tort of wrongful death." WP:BLP
You may have to read it carefully. For those that don't immediately see the issue, I'm not making an argument based on the lack of equivalence between murder and the tort of wrongful death, or that the tort case only required a sample of 12 to determine he was, more likely than not, liable ('on the balance of probabilities'). The key words are 'for example', that means we can apply the example (sentence 2) to the schema (sentence 1). To avoid any ambiguity I'm going to quickly walk through the transposition, it is an objective transformation so should not be contentious, I am pointing it out here before correcting because it's a good example of how a very subtle misuse of language can cause problemsAOLP. To do this we need to simply change conditional phrases into absolute ones, and hypotheticals into actual details (provided by the example). So, first listing each substitution to the sentence in order:
:Sometimes
:a ← The
:may prevail ← prevailed
:a ← the
:if ← though
:the
:the person  ← Simpson
:was acquitted ← was acquitted of
::Sometimes a[The] plaintiff may prevailed in a[the] tort case even if[though] the person[Simpson], who caused the harm, was acquitted in an earlier criminal trial.
Applying this produces: 
'The plaintiff prevailed in the tort case even though Simpson, who caused the harm, was acquitted in an earlier criminal trial.'
The object of the acquittal is left unstated, so he must have been acquitted of causing 'the harm'. We know the criminal trial acquitted him of murdering Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. Therefore:
:caused the harm ← murdered Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman
Finally, giving us the end result:
'The plaintiff prevailed in the tort case even though Simpson, who murdered Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, was acquitted in an earlier criminal trial.'
Note, should you disagree with the final substitution, consider which of these two sentences sounds more natural:
1. Mike, who stole the car, was acquitted of stealing the car in criminal court. (Does it sound like there's a little redundancy going on?)
2. Mike, who stole the car, was acquitted in criminal court. (Consider, what crime do you suppose Mike was acquitted of? If it sounds like Mike was acquitted of stealing a car, then 'caused the harm' must be referring to what OJ was acquitted of, therefore, murder - because the grammatical structure is identical in both cases.) 143.167.166.52 (talk) 03:35, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: "Sometimes a plaintiff may prevail in a tort case even if the person who is alleged to have committed the tort was acquitted of charges relating to the same event in an earlier criminal trial. For example, following the death of Nicole Brown Simpson, O.J. Simpson was charged then acquitted of murder in criminal court, and later found liable for the tort of wrongful death."' 143.167.166.52 (talk) 03:46, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  BLP issue: article states OJ murdered Nicole as fact. 

message: Small issue but what is "escape of fire"? I assume it doesn't mean a fire escape. This is how one of the three paragraphs in the history section starts so it seems significant. The linked article just repeats the same term without explanation. Qwerty0 (talk) 22:31, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  "escape of fire"