A tort is sometimes called a civil wrong. In the United States a tort is where a person harms someone else – – by doing something other than breaching a contract – – and the law allows the injured person to sue to recover for his damages. Sometimes a wrongful act can be both a…
Estoppel is where a party is prevented from denying or escaping the legal implications of a certain fact, because that party’s actions caused another party to reasonably believe that that the fact was true. For example, in an agency by estoppel, a a court will deem that an agency relationship existed, where one party was…
An intentional tortious act means that defendant acted deliberately and intended to commit the action which resulted in plaintiff’s harm. This does not always mean that the defendant actually intended to harm the plaintiff. For example, if a defendant intentionally takes plaintiff’s wallet, believing that it is his own, he may be liable for conversion…
Joint and several liability is where more than one defendant is liable for a plaintiff’s injury, but each defendant is liable to compensate the plaintiff, up to the full amount of his damages. For example, if defendants A and B cause plaintiff $1000 in damages, and A & B are jointly and severally liable, plaintiff…
Negligence is a type of tort. You will also hear negligence called an unintentional tort. Negligence is legal way to describe carelessness. The defendant was not as careful as he should have been and his carelessness injured the plaintiff. The elements of a negligence claim are duty, breach, causation, and damage, meaning that the plaintiff must…
