Tort law

IIED: Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, commonly abbreviated IIED, is an intentional tort designed to address conduct that is so extreme, outrageous, and emotionally destructive that the law treats it as a serious civil wrong. Unlike battery, IIED does not require physical contact. Unlike assault, Read more

Intent and Transferred Intent Intent is one of the defining ideas in intentional tort law. When the law calls a tort “intentional,” it does not necessarily mean that the defendant intended to injure another person. Instead, intent generally concerns what the defendant intended to do and, in some circumstances, what Read more

Battery in Tort Law Battery in tort law is an intentional tort involving an unauthorized harmful or offensive contact with another person. In simple terms, battery occurs when a person intentionally causes harmful or offensive physical contact with another person without legal justification or consent. The contact does not necessarily Read more

Assault in Tort Law Assault in tort law is an intentional tort involving conduct that causes another person to reasonably anticipate an imminent harmful or offensive physical contact. In simple terms, civil assault generally occurs when one person intentionally causes another person to reasonably fear that they are about to Read more

Eggshell Plaintiff Rule The eggshell plaintiff rule, also called the eggshell skull rule or thin-skull rule, is a principle of tort law under which a defendant who is legally responsible for injuring another person generally must take the plaintiff as the defendant finds them. In simple terms: You take your Read more

Negligence Per Se Negligence per se is a doctrine in tort law that can make a violation of a statute or regulation sufficient to establish the breach element of negligence when the law was designed to protect a particular class of people from the kind of harm that occurred. In Read more

Intervening and Superseding Causes in Tort Law A defendant’s conduct does not always lead directly to an injury. Sometimes another event occurs in between. For example: Defendant’s negligence ↓ Another event ↓ Plaintiff’s injury That second event may be called an intervening cause. The central legal question is: Does the Read more

Foreseeability in Tort Law One of the most important questions in Tort Law is also one of the most deceptively simple: Could the harm reasonably have been anticipated? This question is the foundation of foreseeability. Foreseeability is a legal concept used to determine whether a risk of harm was sufficiently Read more

Proximate Cause in Tort Law A defendant may have breached a duty of care. The defendant’s conduct may even have been a factual cause of the plaintiff’s injury. But that does not necessarily mean that the defendant is legally responsible for every consequence that follows. At some point, the law Read more