Torts….Torts and More Torts

Trimester One started this week and I am once again teaching Tort Law to a group of (unsuspecting) first year law students. I spent the afternoon talking about establishing a duty of care and thought- why not share my thoughts with a wider audience….

So first things first…what are torts??? Did somebody say ‘it has something to do with a cake?’ Well-  I wish this was the case- but alas no!! Torts within our legal system relate to civil wrongs- just think the opposite of criminal wrongs… In a criminal action the state is one of the main parties in the action. In a civil case the parties are usually individuals who have either suffered or caused a loss to another. Often the loss will be personal injury- think broken bones- but there are other types of loss or damages such as property loss (eg car damage) or psychological loss.

There are several torts actions a plaintiff (person who suffers a loss) can pursue, but the most common action is negligence. In order to found negligence, a number of elements need to be established. One of the primary elements is the finding of a duty of care. In other words- when does one owe a legal duty to another person/s? This is different to a moral duty that you may owe others- but there are certainly overlaps.

Anyway- I just spent the past two hours talking about how to establish a duty of care in a negligence action…yep the students will be super excited!!! Often, a duty of care will be relatively straight forward to establish- such as the duty a driver owes to another road user- but there are some cases where it becomes more difficult. An example of this would be the duties police officers owe to members of the general public. Anyway…. In these more difficult cases there is more ambiguity as to when a duty of care is owed and lots of exciting tests need to be applied.

Here endeth your first torts lesson….. you now deserve that piece of cake!!!