Definitions of tort

Some definitions of tort are as Under :--

 WINFIELD and JOLOWICZ -

   "Tortious liability arises from the breach of duty primarily fixed by law; this duty is towards persons generally and its breach is redressible by an action for unliquidated damages."

SAMLMOND & HEUSTON, Law of tort (1992) -

   A tort is" a civil wrong for which action remedy is a common law action for unliquidated damages, and which is not exclusively the breach of a contract or the breach of a trust or other merely equitable obligation."

Sir Frederick Pollock thus sums up the normal idea of tort :-
 
    " every tort is an act or omission ( not being merely the breach of a duty arising out of a personal relation, or undertaken by contract) which is related in one of the following ways to harm ( including interference with an absolute right, whether there be measurable actual damage or not ), suffered by a determinate person :---

          1) It may be an act which, without lawful justification or excuse, is intended by the agent to cause harm, and does cause the harm complained of.

   

       

           2) It may be an act in itself contrary to law, or an omission of specific legal duty, which causes harm not intended by the person so acting or omitting.

     

           3) It may be an act violating an absolute right ( especially rights of possession or property ), and treated as wrongful without regard to the actor's  intention or knowledge. This, as we have seen, is an artificial extension of the general conceptions which are common to English and roman law.

     

          4) It may be an act or omission causing harm which the person so acting or omitting to act did not intend to cause, but might and should with due diligence have foreseen and prevented.

         5) It may, in special cases, consist merely in not avoiding or preventing harm which the party was bound, absolutely or within limits, avoid or prevent.".