TORT LAW

Tort law

Tort Law

Introduction

Torts are private or civil wrongs or injury, other than a breach of contract, for which courts will award damages and other relief if the person committing the wrong breached a duty. The person who is injured is the plaintiff and the person who causes the injury is the tort feasor. Tort law can be traced in English common law and has been an integral part of Anglo-American law for hundreds of years. However, tort law has been modified by state legislature since the late 1800s. During the twentieth century many laws were passed that gave plaintiffs more rights and better chances of succeeding. Moreover, injuries suffered in the workplace have been removed from tort law completely. All states now have state-administered workers' compensation systems that pay injured workers according to set schedules. Though tort law is a civil matter, in cases where punitive damages are awarded the award is intended as a deterrent analogous to a criminal sanction.

There are kinds of harm which are currently irremediable in English law even if intentionally and maliciously inflicted: privacy, per se, continues for the present to be an interest not protected in negligence. Furthermore, when the harm of which the claimant complains does not give rise to a tort if committed intentionally, the courts are naturally reluctant to say that such harm gives rise to a cause of action if inflicted carelessly (Turner, 2005).

In this paper we will discuss the Law Commission's recommendations and whether these would make the law more or less coherent, and ways in which the courts have attempted to do this. The Law Commission renowned that the law in relation to the recovery for negligently was the cause of psychiatric injury, that has “taken a wrong turn”. Thus, too much appears to turn upon the primary/secondary victim distinction, and the restrictive approach for the actions of secondary victims has led to unjust results. We will now turn to the related case law dealing with primary and secondary distinctions and show how the courts have limited claims in these cases.

Discussion and Analysis

The English legal system has often regarded negligence and compensation of psychiatric harm as a controversial issue within the realm of tort law. The laws behind psychiatric harm or “nervous shock”, as the courts have commonly referred to it, has been seen by many judges, lawyers and academics as leading to inconsistent results, having complex criteria and standards, and adopting illogical approaches leading to injustice. Nervous shock can be seen as a mental injury or medically recognized psychiatric illness. In recent years the courts have begun to talk about 'psychiatric illnesses rather than nervous shock. Psychiatric illness or injuries which can be triggered by the perception of traumatic events include “conditions such as depression, schizophrenia, post traumatic stress disorder, and anxiety neurosis”. The development of law within the compensation of psychiatric injury has been largely influenced by policy considerations and attempts to restrict the number of potential ...