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Definition for: "Tort"

A wrong committed by one person against another; a civil not a criminal wrong; a wrong not arising out of a contract; a violation of a legal duty that one person has toward another. (Negligence and libel are torts.) Every tort is composed of a legal obligation, a breach of that obligation, and damage as the result of the breach of the obligation.

n. from French for "wrong," a civil wrong or wrongful act, whether intentional or accidental, from which injury occurs to another. Torts include all negligence cases as well as intentional wrongs which result in harm. Therefore tort law is one of the major areas of law (along with contract, real property and criminal law) and results in more civil litigation than any other category. Some intentional torts may also be crimes, such as assault, battery, wrongful death, fraud, conversion (a euphemism for theft) and trespass on property and form the basis for a lawsuit for damages by the injured party. Defamation, including intentionally telling harmful untruths about another-either by print or broadcast (libel) or orally (slander)-is a tort and used to be a crime as well.

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