Doctrine. A tort is a civil wrong for which the ordinary remedy is an award of unliquidated damages, and which is not exclusively the breach of a contract or a trust. Tortious duties are imposed by law rather than voluntarily assumed, and are owed to persons the parties never chose. The subject is best located by contrast with its neighbours: a crime is a wrong against the state, prosecuted and punished on proof beyond reasonable doubt, whereas a tort is pursued by the claimant in his own interest and answered by compensation on the balance of probabilities.
Tort performs four functions: compensation, deterrence, the vindication of rights, and the just distribution of loss. Its sources are overwhelmingly the common law, developed case by case through precedent, but statute is decisive in several nominate torts (the Occupiers’ Liability Acts 1957 and 1984; the Consumer Protection Act 1987), and the Human Rights Act 1998 exerts a diffuse influence on claims against public authorities. Every tort resolves into the same anatomy: wrongful conduct, interference with a protected interest, resulting damage, and a remedy.
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