A‘tort’is a civil wrong which injures someone or harms a person’s property or reputation. Sometimes it is negligence. Negligence can occur in many situations. For example, when a hospital gives a patient a transfusion of the wrong type of blood, or a solicitor gives his client wrong advice because he has overlooked a new law, or a company fails to make sure its employees’ working conditions are safe. Anybody who is injured or who suffers financial loss through someone else’s negligence has a right to sue in the civil courts for compensation.
Negligence is only one of a range of torts, or wrongs, for which it is possible to sue and claim damages. Other torts include assault, libel, slander and nuisance. But by far the most common tort, in terms of the number of court actions started, is negligence.
Apart from tort, the other big category of civil action is for breach of contract. When two parties enter into a contract, they both agree to carry out certain obligations. The contract need not be in writing. An oral agreement to buy something from a shop or to do some work is just as much a contract as a document running to a dozen pages of legalese.