Tort Law Opinion

Tort law contrasts with other areas of law in that they are governed by different procedures and the laws themselves are different. There is contract law, administrative law, property law, trust law, criminal law, and several others not mentioned here.

Tort law is governed by the Civil Rules of Procedure and is designed to
compensate victims. It also requires preponderance of the evidence and protects individual interests, Buckley, W & Okrent, C (2004). A tortfeasor commits a crime against an individual. Tort law also allows monetary gains but only with the strength of the evidence on the person being sued. In civil cases proof only has to be more than fifty percent clear and the burden of proof rests with the petitioner unless it is Res Ipsa Loquitur which means the evidence speaks for itself and the respondent must prove otherwise.

A criminal case which is governed by the Rules of Criminal Procedure and states that the proof would have to be clearly evident that the person arrested did the crime. A crime is an offense against the state and society and the state prosecutes these cases. Criminal law allows restitution if there are any costs associated with the criminal act.

One scenario that involves tort law and criminal law is the case of the in-ground pool and the duty to make the pool reasonably safe. If the property owner does not put a fence around his pool, some children that do not have the age to know better, could and possibly would take that as an invitation to swim in the pool. With this comes the responsibility of …”maintaining his property in a reasonably safe condition in view of all the circumstances, including the likelihood of injury to others, the seriousness of the injury, and the burden of avoiding the risk,” Basso v. Miller. If by chance a child was hurt criminal negligence can result which could be a civil case or a criminal case. All elements for negligence are apparent. If a child were to drown this could result in criminal negligence this could lead to the arrest of the property owner, therefore tried by the state. This could also result in a civil case as the parents could sue the person for negligence.

To elaborate … a tort, and a crime; for example, the misappropriation of funds by a trustee is a breach of the contract of trust, the tort of conversion, and the crime of embezzlement (tort n.d.).
Terminology in tort law and criminal law are similar. Defense which is used in a civil case and self defense used in a criminal case are similar and both of these are used to clear a person of a crime. Tort terminology and criminal terminology are interchangeable because most of the time a criminal case can also become a civil case. This depends on if an individual(s) was involved in the criminal activity. As in the O.J. Simpson case he was tried for criminal charges and then brought to court in a civil suite.

References

Buckley, W & Okrent, C (2004). Torts and Personal Injury: Third Edition. Canada: Delmar Learning. Retrieved January 6, 2009 from Kaplan University Online database.

Criminal Law (n.d.). Retrieved January 6, 2009, from Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia database.

Basso v. Miller, 40 N.Y.2d 233, 241 (N.Y. 1976). Retrieved January 6, 2009 from LexisNexis database.

TORT. (n.d.). Retrieved January 6, 2009, from Funk & Wagnalls New World
Encyclopedia database