Tort law is the area of the law that covers most civil suits. Generally, every claim that arises in civil court, with the exception of contractual disputes, falls under tort law. The concept of this area of law is to redress a wrong done to a person and provide relief from the wrongful acts of others, usually by awarding monetary damages as compensation. The original intent of tort is to provide full compensation for proved harms.
Tort law requires those who are found to be at fault for harming others to compensate the victims. Typical harms include the loss of past or future income, payment of medical expenses, payment for pain and suffering, and may also include additional punitive damages that are meant to punish the plaintiff in excess of full compensation. Tort law can be split into three categories:
negligent torts, intentional torts, and strict liability torts. Negligent torts encompass harm done to people generally through the failure of another to exercise a certain level of care, usually defined as a reasonable standard of care. Accidents are a standard example of negligent torts. Intentional torts, on the other hand, refer to harms done to people intentionally by the willful misconduct of another, such as assault, fraud, and theft.