Talking Tort, part 1

What the heck is a tort?

If I understand it correctly, torts are a general set of laws that keep people from screwing each other over. According to this wiki, tort law "addresses, and provides remedies for, civil wrongs not arising out of contractual obligations." Tort law determines whether someone has received a physical, emotional, financial, or other type of injury. If a party has in fact been injured, tort law specifies how to determine who is liable and what penalties are applicable.

The following is a list of the 7 different categories of tort, along with my brief and possibly inaccurate explanations of what each type entail.

Negligence
Of course you didn't mean to, but you should have known better.

A famous example is the McDonald's hot coffee case. Of course they didn't mean to McBurn that woman, but according to the law they should have warned her that the coffee was hot. Feel free to roll your in eyes in disgust at this silly lawsuit. We'll talk tort reform in part 2.

Statutory
Private entities have certain responsibilities to the public. For instance, baby formula companies in America make sure their products are actually safe for babies to eat. How do you like that, China?

Nuisance
My memory is hazy, but I think this is why they dragged Mr. Kringle into court in Yes Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus.

Defamation
Let's say a certain gym provided a helpful web page that compared their facility to others in the area. On this page lots of the information about a particular competitor was inaccurate (in a bad way). The competitor could sue for defamation.

This would be a case of libel. Libel is broadcasted defamation. Slander is spoken.

Intentional
Just before I left town for the holidays I changed my oil. Being extremely busy those last few days, I forgot to swing by Advance Auto Parts and dump the used oil. When I left town the pan just sat in the back of my truck for a week. Apparently it snowed. When the snow melted all the water mixed with the old oil and turned into this disgusting brown sludge that no one will accept. I've got GALLONS of the stuff. I managed to get most of it into a couple of kitty litter jugs but I still don't know what to do with it. I'm about to just dump it down my kitchen sink. Screw it. There may or may not be a specific law out there prohibiting me from dumping old Castrol GTX down the drain.

But wait! I'm sure 6 quarts of oil would be very bad for the plumbing in my apartment building. Since I'm knowingly damaging something or someone (property, in this case) I would be opening myself up to suit under intentional tort law.

If anyone knows what to do with the sludge send me an email.

Economic
Protects businesses from certain kinds of interference.

Competition
Laws to promote competition between businesses. The biggie is anti-trust law.

So that covers the basics of tort. Now for a lawyer joke.

Man: How much do you charge for answering three simple questions?
Lawyer: A thousand dollars.
Man: A thousand dollars! Isn't that a little expensive?
Lawyer: Yes it is. Now what's your third question?

If you wanted to figure out why lawyers have such a bad reputation, you could definitely start by looking at torts. Tomorrow we'll get into why torts can be bad, as well as how to remedy them.