What is a Tort? A brief overview of Negligent Torts, Intentional Tort, and Strict Liability

At Van Dorn & Curtiss, we specialize in tort law. A tort is a civil wrong resulting in injury or harm to another person. The injured person may seek the help of a court of law to prevent the continuation of harmful conduct or for monetary compensation for the harm suffered. In this respect, the tort, or civil wrong, provides the grounds for a lawsuit. One major purpose of tort law is to deter others from committing the same harms. For example, if a careless and reckless driver causes serious personal injuries to another person on the road, a civil suit based in tort will not only compensate the injured individual for the harm they suffered, but will deter the negligent driver from continuing to operate a motor vehicle in a careless and reckless manner. Hopefully, the negligent driver will be deterred from causing similar harm to another innocent driver. There are three major kinds of torts: negligent torts, intentional torts, and strict liability torts. These are discussed in more detail below.

Negligent torts are civil suits based upon principles of negligence. Negligence is the failure to exercise the type of care that a reasonable person in society would exercise under the same circumstances. The most common type of negligent tort is based upon a motor vehicle accident. Generally, motor vehicle drivers have a duty to exercise reasonable care when operating their vehicle. If they fail to operate do so, they breach this duty. In order to establish that a breach occurred, your personal injury attorney would have to prove that the driver failed to act as a reasonable person would have under the same or similar circumstances. In other words, a negligent tort occurs when some acts unreasonably unsafe and another is injured as a result. For a more detailed description of the principles of negligence, see The Elements of Negligence. For a more detailed description of how negligence affects your personal injury claim, see Was That Person “Negligent” and Do I Have a Personal Injury Claim.

Intentional torts are civil wrongs resulting from the intentional actions of another person. For example, an intentional tort occurs when someone intentionally strikes another person, causing serious personal injury. Intentional torts are commonly referred to as battery, assault, false imprisonment, trespass, nuisance, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Some intentional torts are punishable through the criminal justice system. However, the primary aim of tort law is to provide relief to the victim for the damages incurred in addition to punishing the defendant. It may be easier to get punitive damages for intentional torts, as society has a general interest in deterring members of society from intentionally harming other members of society.

Strict liability is an interesting type of tort because it makes a person responsible for harm caused by their actions regardless of their subjective culpability or fault. Strict liability commonly arises when someone suffers harm as the result of a defective product or animal attack. For example, New Hampshire has a statute that makes dogs owners strictly liable for harm caused by their dog. See N.H. R.S.A. 466:19. This means that even if a dog owner takes all reasonable measures to keep their dog from causing others harms, such as by erecting a fence around their property, if the dog escapes and injures another person, they are held liable.

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