Torts. Very few people are aware of what this actually means.

People studying La w will be familiar with it, but to the common man, its almost like Gibberish. The word originates in French, where it means wrong and in Latin, tortum means twisted. These words arent a part of a common mans speech. It takes one a lot of time to t ruly understand the meaning of this word, for no fault of our own. If you want t o blame someone, blame Judges and legislatures who were unable to provide compre hensive definitions. According to Fraiser, A tort is an infringement of a right i n rem of a private individual, giving a right of compensation at the suit of the injured party. Winfield commented, Tortious liability arises from the breach of duty primarily fixed by law; this duty is towards persons generally and its brea ch is redressible by an action for unliquidated damages. With all due respect to these famous law dignitaries, but I highly doubt that th e general public will be able to understand these excessively complex definition s. And you cant possibly expect high school graduates to be familiar with the ter m either, unless they come from a law background. I think now I should familiarise you with the term torts. Its something each and ev ery one of us is connected to. While dining at a restaurant, if you eat somethin g stale and fall sick the next day, it is considered negligence on the part of t he staff (this is an extremely common situation that mostly everyone has gone th rough. I know I have). We live in a society, that is considered civilized (or so Ive been told) where ever y individual is entitled to their fair share of rights and privileges. Nobody is allowed to come into your house and yell at you or beat you up, for no fault of your own (trespass that is). In this way, every man is his own master and is al lowed to live his life the way he wants to and no outsider should be able to int erfere. If in any case, your neighbour is building a huge structure in front of your win dow that blocks the beautiful view from it, you can rightfully sue him for his a ctions. Every individual is able to exercise his rights and privileges, so long as he doesnt come in the way of someone elses enjoyment of rights. Rights and duti es are complementary to each other. In order to live a carefree life, we must en sure that we perform our duties correctly so as to safeguard the rights or other people around us. Duties can be legally enforced, whereas rights are legally pr otected. So basically Torts law ensures that if a persons rights are violated, he is able to find a solution for it, i.e. a legal solution for the breach of legal rights. The action which causes the injury is called a Tort. The court cannot obviously take action for everything that goes wrong in your li fe. They cant solve your everyday love problems or act as a pacifier between thre e crazy sisters. The law is only liable to ensure that all legal rights are uphe ld and to remedy their violation. The law provides protection against the follow ing in order to maintain a happy and distinguished survival: - Personal injury such as automobile accident, slip and fall, dog bite, - Medical malpractice (surgeons leaving knives etc in your body, stealing & smug gling body organs), - Defect in either manufacturing or design of product, - Wrongful death - survivor recovers economic value of remainder of decedents lif e, - Patent / copyright infringement,

- Defamation (anything which ridicules or lowers the esteem and reputation of a person in public), - Intentional wrongs against a person - assault, battery, false imprisonment, in tentional infliction of emotional distress, and, - Wrongs against ones property. There is a clear line between what the law can protect you against and what it c annot. This distinction is extremely necessary. If your rights are violated, the court will have no option other than to take action against the violator for an y damages done to you. By damages, the court refers to any monetary awards to both tangible and intangi ble losses caused by the tort, but sometimes it may take the form of an injuncti on (an order by the court that ensures that a person does or does not do a parti cular deed), reimbursement or self-help. If your rights are violated after a tort is committed, you file a plaint. The vi ctim of the tort is known as the plaintiff, and the person who commits the tort is either known as the defendant or the tortfeasor. For the plaintiff to get damages for the tort, he/she must prove certain things in a court: 1. Plaintiff has the legal right (or a legal duty existed on part of the tortfea sor) 2. Infringement of the legal right (or breach of the duty) 3. Causation (breach caused an injury which may both be a direct or proximate co nsequence of defendants act) 4. Injury (need not just be physical or financial but may be emotional as well. But most importantly it must result from violation of a legal right) As soon as this has been proved in a court, the plaintiff receives adequate comp ensation for the tort committed against him. The compensation received is subjec tive. It differs from one tort to another. The compensation can either be moneta ry, injunction or restitution. So this was just an introduction to Torts. There are various things to learn abo ut torts. The different kinds, their jurisdictions, defence etc. I hope you unde rstood the concept and maybe youd be tempted to join the field of law!