Tort law is the name given to a body of law that creates, and provides remedies for, civil wrongs that do not arise out of contractual duties. A person who is legally injured may be able to use tort law to recover damages from someone who is legally responsible, or "liable," for those injuries. Generally speaking, tort law defines what constitutes a legal injury, and establishes the circumstances under which one person may be held liable for another's injury.
For instance, if somebody throws a ball and accidentally hits a pedestrian in the eye, the pedestrian may sue the ball thrower for losses occasioned by the accident (for example, costs of medical treatment or lost income during time off work). Whether or not the pedestrian wins will depend on whether he can prove the thrower engaged in tortious conduct in injuring the pedestrian (most typically, by failing to exercise ordinary care in undertaking the activity that caused the injury).
In addition to bodily integrity, tort law protects certain personal liberties, such as the right to one's reputation. If a newspaper publishes a defamatory statement about a celebrity which is untrue, the paper may have to pay damages to compensate the celebrity for the harm to his or her reputation resulting from the defamation. Other proprietary interests can also be protected, such as certain rights in property - for example, if somebody took their pet bulldog into another person's china shop, and the bulldog broke all the china, the pet owner would probably have to compensate the shop owner for the damage.
Tort law is broken down into various distinct types of "torts", so that a person may sue in negligence, when somebody has unreasonably breached a duty of care affecting another's interests. Torts other than negligence focus on particular interests, as defamation protecting reputation, nuisance and trespass to land protecting a landowner's interests in use and enjoyment of his land, trespass to the person protecting bodily interests, false imprisonment protecting freedom of movement, conversion protecting movable property, economic torts protecting contractual interests, and so on. The majority of tort cases concern road accidents, accidents in the workplace or medical accidents.
