What is Tort Law?

Personal injury lawsuits are regularly filed by individuals or groups who have been injured as a result of another party's negligence or wrongdoing. These wrongs, which are civil wrongs because they fall under the umbrella of civil law, are called torts. The area of law that covers torts and lawsuits filed for torts is called tort law.

Most any lawsuit filed for a personal injury is going to fall under tort law. In tort cases, the main goal is to collect money, also called damages, to recover from lost income, to account for pain and suffering, and to reimburse any medical expenses that the victim has incurred as a result of their injury. In a few personal injury lawsuits, the plaintiffs seek something other than money, sometimes imprisonment for the defendant, although this is rare.

A personal injury attorney will be able to help you navigate tort law. There are three kinds of torts – intentional, negligent and strict liability torts – and your personal injury attorney's first step will be to determine under what category your injury falls. For example, an intentional tort is cause by someone's clear intention to harm, and creates a much more black and white case than a negligent lawsuit does.

If you've been injured by a faulty or defective product, or shoddy manufacturing, your personal injury attorney will help you file a lawsuit for a strict liability tort that will target the manufacturer of the defective product. In this case, your personal injury attorney may even try to contact other victims and file a class action suit against an irresponsible company.

Rewards in tort lawsuits vary. Plaintiffs can sue for wages they have already lost, and may also estimate and sue for wages that will be lost in the future due to their injuries. Often times injured plaintiffs have to miss a significant amount of work to recover from their injury, and may also find that their injury prevents them from returning to their job.

For example, a carpenter injured on a construction job due to a contracting company's negligence may hire a personal injury attorney to sue for money to provide him with job training if he is forced to give up his construction career due to his injury.

Related topics: All About Personal Injury, Other Attorneys Specialties