TORT - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

TORTAuthored

The Law Mind • 1426 words

Definition

A tort is a civil wrong — an act or omission that causes harm to another person and gives rise to a legal claim for damages, independent of any contract between the parties. Tort law is the body of law governing these wrongs and the remedies available for them. The field encompasses an enormous range of conduct: intentional wrongs such as battery and fraud, wrongs arising from unreasonable carelessness (negligence), and certain wrongs that impose liability regardless of fault (strict liability).

Three features define a tort claim: (1) a duty owed by the defendant to the plaintiff, (2) a breach of that duty, and (3) harm caused by the breach. Absent contractual obligation, tort is the primary mechanism by which injured parties seek compensation in civil court.

The term is also used as a unit of classification. Individual wrongs — assault, defamation, trespass, nuisance, conversion — are each called a tort, and the field as a whole is called tort law or the law of torts.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A wrongful act, whether intentional or negligent, regarded as non-criminal and unrelated to a contract, which causes an injury and can be remedied in civil court, usually through the awarding of damages.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Any civil wrong or injury; a wrongful act (not involving a breach of contract) for which an action will lie. (Also listed with an obsolete sense: mischief; injury; calamity.)
The common-language definitions are unusually close to the technical legal meaning. The important gap is one of depth: popular usage treats "tort" as a synonym for "civil wrong," while legal usage carries a sophisticated analytical structure — duty, breach, causation, damages — that determines whether any particular wrong is actionable. The common definitions also omit strict liability torts, which require no wrongful act in the ordinary sense at all.

Common Confusion

TORT VS. CRIME VS. BREACH OF CONTRACT
The same act can be simultaneously a tort, a crime, and a breach of contract. A physical assault, for example, is a crime prosecuted by the state and a tort for which the victim may sue civilly. These are parallel proceedings with different standards of proof and different remedies. Tort law is entirely civil: the state is not a party, and the remedy is compensation to the plaintiff, not punishment by the government. Breach of contract differs from tort in that contract liability arises from a voluntary agreement; tort duties are imposed by law on all persons regardless of consent.

Core Elements

To establish a tort claim, a plaintiff must generally demonstrate:
1. DUTY — The defendant owed a legal duty of care or obligation to the plaintiff. The scope of duty varies by the category of tort: for negligence it is typically a duty of reasonable care; for intentional torts the duty is more specific; for strict liability torts the duty arises from the nature of the activity or product.
2. BREACH — The defendant failed to meet the standard required by that duty.
3. CAUSATION — The breach was both the actual cause (cause-in-fact) and proximate cause (legal cause) of the plaintiff's harm.
4. DAMAGES — The plaintiff suffered actual harm, whether physical, economic, or in certain categories of intentional tort, dignitary harm recognizable at law.

Note: Some intentional torts do not require proof of actual damages — nominal damages may be awarded for the violation of a right alone.

Recognized Forms

/SUBTYPES
TORT law is conventionally organized into three broad categories:

INTENTIONAL TORTS — Wrongs where the defendant acted with the purpose or knowledge that the result would follow. Examples: battery, assault, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, trespass to land, trespass to chattels, conversion, defamation, fraud.

NEGLIGENCE — The dominant modern category. The defendant failed to exercise the care of a reasonable person, causing harm. This category expanded dramatically through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to become the organizing principle of most personal injury litigation.

STRICT LIABILITY TORTS — Liability imposed without regard to fault or intent. Applies historically to abnormally dangerous activities (following Rylands v. Fletcher), and in modern law to products liability and certain activities involving animals or hazardous conditions.

Why It Matters in Research

The word "tort" is deceptively stable across centuries but the concept it names has shifted substantially. Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus need to navigate three distinct periods:

HISTORICAL USAGE (pre-19th century): The term was rarely used as a standalone legal category. Wrongs were pursued through specific forms of action — trespass, trespass on the case, trover, assumpsit — each with its own procedural rules. The modern general category of "tort" did not exist as such. Historical sources organized by form of action will not use "tort" as a chapter heading, and searching for that term will miss most of the relevant law.

19TH-CENTURY CONSOLIDATION: The abolition of the forms of action through procedural reform (the Field Code reforms in the United States beginning 1848; the Judicature Acts in England in 1873–75) created the need for a substantive organizing principle. "Tort" emerged as that principle. The first systematic American tort treatises appeared in the 1860s–1870s. Historical dictionaries from this period reflect the transitional state: they define tort accurately but without the taxonomic detail of modern sources.

MODERN TAXONOMY: Negligence, which barely existed as a separate category before the nineteenth century, is now the dominant tort. Strict products liability is a twentieth-century development entirely absent from historical dictionary sources. Any research using historical sources to understand modern negligence doctrine or products liability is working by inference, not direct authority.

JURISDICTIONAL TRAP: Sovereign immunity historically barred most tort claims against governments. The Federal Tort Claims Act (1946) created a limited federal waiver. State waivers vary enormously. Historical sources treat governmental immunity as near-absolute; modern research requires jurisdiction-specific analysis.

The Rapalje & Lawrence entry for tort is essentially a case citation index without substantive text — useful for locating historical decisions but not for doctrinal synthesis.

Historical Dictionary Support

The historical dictionary sources are consistent in their core definition but differ in texture.

Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the fullest etymological grounding, tracing "tort" to the Latin tortus (twisted, crooked) and quoting Lord Coke's observation that the wrong is "wrested or crooked, being contrary to that which is right and straight." This etymology, cited from Co. Litt. 158b, appears in substantially identical form in Black's Law Dictionary as well, suggesting both drew from the same Coke passage. The etymological note is more than antiquarian: it explains why the term was used in Norman French legal practice as the direct antonym of droit (right).

Black's Law Dictionary adds the most useful doctrinal bridge, distinguishing tort from contract explicitly: tort is "a wrong or wrongful act, for which an action will lie, as distinguished from a contract," citing Blackstone's Commentaries 3:117. This is the foundational distinction the historical sources all reach, though they express it differently.

Anderson's Dictionary of Law entry retrieved in the source material is actually an entry for Tontine and does not address tort. This appears to be a retrieval error and should not be relied upon.

Rapalje & Lawrence does not define the term in the excerpt provided but instead cross-references cases and the entry for Nuisance, confirming that the historical research mode was case-indexed rather than concept-driven.

None of the historical sources address negligence as a distinct and dominant category, strict liability, or products liability — doctrines that define modern tort law. Historical dictionary research on tort will capture the intentional torts and nuisance doctrine adequately but will underrepresent the categories that generate most contemporary litigation.

Jurisdictional Note

Tort law in the United States is almost entirely state common law, with significant variation across jurisdictions in duty rules, damages caps, comparative fault frameworks, and recognized categories of harm. Federal tort claims against the United States government are governed by the Federal Tort Claims Act, which imposes significant limitations not present in state law. Researchers should not assume uniformity across jurisdictions without verification.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Civil Wrongs — Tort Law — Overview; Negligence — Elements and Standards; Intentional Torts — Overview; Strict Liability — Abnormally Dangerous Activities; Sovereign Immunity and Government Tort Liability.

TORTmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

Wrong; injury; the opposite of right. So called, according to Lord Coke, be- cause it is wrested, or crooked, being contra- ry to that which is right and straight. Co. Litt. 1586. In modern practice, tort is constantly used as an English word to denote a wrong or wrongful act, for which an action will lie, as distinguished from a contract. 3 Bl. Comm. 117. A tort is a legal wrong committed upon the person or property independent of con- tract. It may be either (1) a direct invasion of some legal right of the individual; (2) the infraction of some public duty by which spe- cial damage accrues to the individual; (3) the violation of some private obligation by which like damage accrues to the individual. In the former case, no special damage is neces- sary to entitle the party to recover. In the two latter cases, such damage is necessary. Code Ga. 1882, § 2951.

TORTmain

Rapalje & Lawrence • 1883

See NUISANCE, (defined). 14 Conn. 317; 5 Barb. (Ν. Υ.) 79, 82; 32 Tex. 208. (what is). 2 Black (C. S.) 418; 3 Cranch (U. S.) C. C. 620; 12 Pet. (U. S.) 91; Pet. (U. S.) C. C. 390; 31 Conn. 479, 487; 4 Ind. 264; 29 Id. 517; 3 Barb. (N. Y.) 157;9 Id. 161, 350; 18 Id. 222; 38 Id. 282, 286; 4 Cow. (N. Y.) 351; 6 Id. 189; 83 Id. 146; 5 Hill (N. Y.) 121; 1 Hilt. (N. Υ.) 126, 128; 24 How. (N. Y.) Pr. 301; 13 Johns. (N. Y.) 312; 26 N. Y. 287, 298; 28 Id. 396; 63 Id. 568;9 Paige (N. Y.) 575; 4 Robt. (N. Y.) 449; 15 Wend. (N. Y.) 397; 23 Id. 354, 446; 70 N. C. 67; 5 Binn. (Pa.) 277; 19 Pa. St. 412; 52 1d. 243; 74 Id. 230, 241; 6 Phil. (Pa.) 82; 4 McCord (S. C.) 472; 3 Sneel (Tenn.) 134; 13 Rep. 555. (what is not). 2 Black (U. S.) 485; 13 How. (U.S.) 518; 5 McLean (C. S.) 425; 21 Conn. 213; 28 Ind. 79; 10 La. Ann. 431, 433; 34 Mich. 212, 218; 2 C. E. Gr. (N. J.) 75; 9 Id. 49; 1 Stockt. (N. J.) 186; 7 Vr. (N. J.) 283; 2 Barb. (N. Y.) 104; 3 Hill (N. Y.) 604; 25 Pa. St. 161, 182; 73 Id. 29, 38; 2 Sneed (Tenn.) 263. (in a covenant). L. R. 11 Eq. 338. (1280) TOOK UP, (as applied to land, defined). 6 rule against perpetuities; gifts for the maintenance of tombstones or monuments forming part Munf. (Va.) 416.

TORTmain

Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890

F ΤΟΝΤΙΝΕ.1 In French law, a partnership composed of the recipients of perpetual or life annuities or benefits, the portions of those who die accruing to the survivors. A species of life annuity, propounded by Lorenzo Tonti, about 1650, as a mode by which governments might obtain loans. The general idea is that property is loaned, owned, or invested for the benefit of a certain number of persons, who at first receive its income, the share of a deceased member increasing the sum divisible among the survivors; the last survivor taking the whole income or principal, as the case may be. A company which issues a policy on the tontine or "ten years dividend system" is in no sense a trustee of any particular fund for policy-holders; their relation is that of debtor and creditor, and the assured is not entitled, at the end of the term, to an accounting, in the absence of evidence of wrong-doing or mistake on the part of the company.2 1. Fr. Improper, unlawful conduct; wrong. De son tort. Of his own wrong; by action not authorized by law. Applied to a person who, without proper authority, takes upon himself to act as executor by intermed1 Fish v. Street, 27 Kan, 271 (1882). • Baker v. Willis, 123 Mass. 195 (1877). $ Goddard v. Chaffee, 2 Allen, 395 (1861). 4 Amend v. Murphy, 69 III. 338 (1873). * Maxon v. Perrott, 17 Mich. 334 (1868). • Whitcomb v. Reid, 31 Miss. 569 (1856); Robinson's Case, 3 Abb. Pr. 467 (1856). Sammis v. Smith, 1 N. Y. Sup. Ct. 446 (1873). 8 Choate v. Redding, 18 Tex. 580 (1857). • Howard v. Williams, 2 Pick. 83 (1824). 10 Harrison v. Mitchell, 13 La. An. 260 (1858). 11 Wilkinson v. Alley, 45 Ν. Η. 551 (1864). 12 Dailey v. May, 5 Mass. *313 (1809); Garrett v. Patchin, 29 Vt. 248 (1857); Pierce v. Gray, 7 Gray, 68 (1856). 13 Patten v. Shepard, 4 Conn. 453 (1823); Smith v. Osburn, 53 Iowa, 475 (1880); Jenkins v. McNall, 27 Kan. 532 (1882). Contra, Buckingham v. Billings, 13 Mass. *86 (1816); Danforth v. Woodward, 10 Pick. 427 (1830); In the sense of a resort for merchants, see 2 Oliver v. White, 18 S. C. 241 (1882). McMaster's Hist. Peop. U. S. 236. 2 Uhlman v. New York Life Ins. Co., 109 N. Y. 421 (1888), distinguishing and limiting Bogardus v. Same, 101 id. 328, 338 (1886). • Oliver v. White, 18 S. C. 241 (1882). • Howard v. Williams, 2 Pick. 83 (1824), Lincoln, J. See also Healy v. Bateman, 2 R. I. 456 (1853). Boston Belting Co. v. Ivens, 28 La. An. 696 (1876), Howell, J. Davidson v. Sechrist, 28 Kan. 324 (1882). Allen v. Thompson, 45 Vt. 473 (1873). 14 Pierce v. Gray, 7 Gray, 68 (1856). 15 Rothschild v. Boelter, 18 Minn. 362 (1872); Bitting v. Vandenburgh, 17 How. Pr. 82 (1859). 16 Johnson v. Barrett, 34 Barb. 364 (1861); Seeley v. Gwillim, 40 Conn. 109 (1873). 17 Richie v. McCauley, 4 Pa. 471 (1846). 18 Lenoir v. Weeks, 20 Ga. 596 (1856). 19 Boston Belting Co. v. Ivens, 28 La. An. 596 (1876). 20 Harriman v. Pittsburgh, &c. R. Co., 45 Ohio St. 11, 19 (1887), citing many cases on negligence. 21 L. tortus, twisted, bent, wrung. dling with the goods of the deceased; also, to a trustee who, of his own authority, enters into the possession, or assumes the management of property which belongs beneficially to another. See further mere negligence in the care of its streets or other works, it cannot be charged. But the authorities establishing the contrary doctrine, that a city is responsible for its mere negligence, are so numerous and so well considered that the law must be deemed settled in accordance with them.¹ For a failure to exercise governmental powers municipal corporations are not liable: as, for a failure to provide appliances for extinguishing fires, to supply an adequate force of police officers, to enforce the laws of the State or its own ordinances.2 The rule is well settled that where power is conferred on a city to make improvements and keep them in repair, the duty to make them is quasi judicial and discretionary, and for a failure to exercise this power or an erroneous estimate of the public needs, no civil action can be maintained. But where the discretion has been exercised, the duty of maintaining the improvement is ministerial, and for neglect to perform such a duty an action by a party injured will lie. See 4 Union Pacific R. Co. v. Henry, 36 Kan. 570 (1887). [3 Bl. Com. 2; 4 id. 5; 1 id. 122. • Tax on Distilled Spirits, 16 Op. Att. Gen. 6C8 (1880).

TORTn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

Mischief; injury; calamity. [Obs.] That had them long opprest with tort. Spenser. Any civil wrong or injury; a wrongful act (not involving a breach of contract) for which an action will lie; a form of action, in some parts of the United States, for a wrong or injury. Executor de son tort. See under Executor.  -- Tort feasor (Law), a wrongdoer; a trespasser. Wharton.

TORTa.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

Stretched tight; taut. [R.] Yet holds he them with tortestrein. Emerson.

tortnoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

A wrongful act, whether intentional or negligent, regarded as non-criminal and unrelated to a contract, which causes an injury and can be remedied in civil court, usually through the awarding of damages. | An injury or wrong.

tortadj

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Twisted.

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