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1 1 (May 26, 2023)

handle is hein.crs/govelty0001 and id is 1 raw text is: a Congressional Research Service informing the legislative debate since 1914 0 Updated May 26, 2023 Introduction to Tort Law The appropriate scope and content of tort law often provoke debate inside and outside of Congress. This In Focus surveys basic tort law principles and identifies pertinent legal considerations for Congress. What Is Tort Law? A tort is an act or omission that causes legally cognizable harm to persons or property. Tort law, in turn, is the body of rules concerned with remedying harms caused by a person's wrongful or injurious actions. For instance, if a surgeon tasked with amputating a patient's left leg instead amputates the right leg, that patient may be able to pursue a tort lawsuit alleging medical malpractice and seeking monetary damages against the surgeon. With a few significant exceptions, tort law is largely a matter of state rather than federal law. Tort law has also historically been a matter of common law rather than statutory law; that is, judges (not legislatures) developed many of tort law's fundamental principles through case-by- case adjudication. Over time, however, state legislatures and Congress have begun to intervene in the development of tort law by enacting tort law statutes. Why Does Tort Law Exist? Tort law serves at least three purposes. First, it facilitates compensation for injuries resulting from wrongful conduct. Second, it can deter persons from acting in ways that may produce harm. Third, it can provide a way of punishing people who wrongfully injure others. Negligence A common example of a tort entails negligence. For example, a motorist who causes a fatal collision by looking at their cellular phone instead of the road may have committed a tort by driving negligently. To establish a defendant's negligence, a plaintiff must ordinarily prove each of these elements: The defendant owed a duty to the plaintiff. (Different defendants may owe different duties depending on a case's circumstances. For instance, while motorists owe a duty of reasonable care to not injure pedestrians and other drivers, doctors generally owe their patients a stricter duty to abide by the standard of care and prudence prevailing in the medical community.) The defendant breached a duty owed. (For instance, a defendant may breach their duty of reasonable care by acting carelessly.) The plaintiff suffered a legally cognizable injury. Whereas a plaintiff may ordinarily sue a defendant for personal injury or property damage, courts have generally been less willing to entertain negligence claims alleging pure economic losses, like lost revenues. * The defendant's breach of duty caused the plaintiff's injury. The plaintiff normally must prove not only that the defendant actually caused their injury-that is, that the injury would not have occurred but for the defendant's breach-but also that the defendant proximately caused their injury-that is, that the causal connection between the defendant's breach and the plaintiff's injury was sufficiently direct as a matter of public policy. (Typically, a defendant is responsible only for injuries that they could reasonably anticipate and not those that are unforeseeable or remote.) In some cases, a defendant may be liable for injuries resulting from a third party's negligence. For instance, under the doctrine of respondeat superior, an employer may be liable for torts committed by its employees. To illustrate, if an employee negligently causes a vehicular collision while driving a company car and carrying out company business, the driver's employer may be liable for any consequent injuries. The employer ordinarily is not liable, however, for torts an employee commits outside the scope of employment. Strict Liability and Products Liability Whereas negligence is chiefly concerned with whether the defendant acted carelessly, strict liability torts impose liability without regard to the defendant's level of care. One prominent example of a strict liability tort is products liability, which permits a plaintiff injured by a defective product to recover damages from the seller of that product without having to prove that the seller acted negligently. Instead, a products liability plaintiff generally only needs to prove the defendant sold a product; the defendant was a commercial seller of such products; the product was in a defective condition at the time the defendant sold it; the plaintiff sustained an injury; and the defect actually and proximately caused the injury. Courts have identified several rationales for subjecting commercial sellers to strict liability, including that a business entity is often in a better economic position to bear

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