Tort liability

“ The Constitution standing alone without more does not create a paramount unchangeable liability to an action of tort on the part of all persons who may take part in enforcing a state law that it invalidates. ”

“ Where a party becomes responsible to the public, by undertaking a public duty, he is liable, though the injury may have arisen from the negligence of his servant or agent. So, in cases of public nuisances, whether the act was done by the party as a servant, or in any other capacity, you are liable to an action at the suit of any person who suffers. Those, however, are cases where the real ground of the liability is the public duty, or the commission of the public nuisance. There is also a class of cases in which the law permits a contract to be turned into a tort ”

“ As we went on to say in the same paragraph, § 1983 "should be read against the background of tort liability that makes a man responsible for the natural consequences of his actions." 365 U.S., at 187, 81 S.Ct. at 484. Part of the background of tort liability, in the case of police officers making an arrest, is the defense of good faith and probable cause.
We hold that the defense of good faith and probable cause, which the Court of Appeals found available to the officers in the common-law action for false arrest and imprisonment, is also available to them in the action under § 1983. ”

“ The question of liability is always anterior to the question of the measure of the consequences that go with liability. If there is no tort to be redressed, there is no occasion to consider what damage might be recovered if there were a finding of a tort. ”

“ Article 34
⁠Where an employee of an employer which is an entity causes any harm to another person in the execution of his work duty, the employer shall assume the tort liability.
⁠Where, during the period of labor dispatch, a dispatched employee causes any harm to another person in the execution of his work duty, the entity employer receiving the dispatched employee shall assume the tort liability; and the entity employer dispatching the employee, if at fault, shall assume the corresponding complementary liability. ”

“ When a man commits a tort, he incurs, by force of the law, a liability to damages, measured by certain rules. When a man makes a contract, he incurs, by force of the law, a liability to damages, unless a certain promised event comes to pass. ”

“ It will be observed that the existence of the external tests of liability which will be mentioned, while it illustrates the tendency of the law of tort to become more and more concrete by judicial decision and by statute, does not interfere with the general doctrine maintained as to the grounds of liability. The argument of this Lecture, although opposed to the doctrine that a man acts or exerts force at his peril, is by no means opposed to the doctrine that he does certain particular acts at his peril. It is the coarseness, not the nature, of the standard which is objected to. ”

“ We agree with the six judges of the Court of Appeals, 197 F.2d 771, 776, 781, 786, that the Act does not extend to such situations, though of course well known in tort law generally. It is to be invoked only on a 'negligent or wrongful act or omission' of an employee. Absolute liability, of course, arises irrespective of how the tortfeasor conducts himself; it is imposed automatically when any damages are sustained as a result of the decision to engage in the dangerous activity. The degree of care used in performing the activity is irrelevant to the application of that doctrine. ”

“ Where the duty has its roots in contract, the undertaking to observe due care may be implied from the relationship, and should it be the fact that a breach of the agreement also constitutes such a failure to exercise care as amounts to a tort, the plaintiff may elect, as the common-law authorities have it, to sue in case or in assumpsit. It is broadly stated in 1 Comyn’s Digest, Action on the Case for Negligence, A 4, p. 418, that “if a man neglect to do that, which he has undertaken to do, an action upon the case lies.... ”

“ Speaking broadly, the cases in which it is not necessary to prove special damage in an action for tort are cases in which the act done is manifestly dangerous, so much so that instinct calls at once for redress, and would take it but for the law. ”

“ In ascertaining its extent, the jury may consider all the facts which relate to the wrongful act of the defendant, and its consequences to the plaintiff; but they are not at liberty to go farther, unless it was done wilfully, or was the result of that reckless indifference to the rights of others which is equivalent to an intentional violation of them. In that case, the jury are authorized, for the sake of public example, to give such additional damages as the circumstances require. The tort is aggravated by the evil motive, and on this rests the rule of exemplary damages. ”

“ We have, moreover, apart from the law of trespass, an exceptionally stringent rule in certain cases, where liability is attached to the befalling of harm without proof of either intention or negligence.” In other words, all torts may be divided into these three classes: 1. Cases where an actual intention to do harm is necessary. This includes but a very small part of the law of torts at present, though malicious prosecution may be cited as an example. ”

“ Where the tort itself is of such a nature as to preclude the ascertainment of the amount of damages with certainty, it would be a perversion of fundamental principles of justice to deny all relief to the injured person, and thereby relieve the wrongdoer from making any amend for his acts. ”

“ The United States has not consented to be sued for torts, and therefore it cannot be said that in a legal sense the United States has been guilty of a tort. For a tort is a tort in a legal sense only because the law has made it so. ”

“ The contract obligation is voluntarily assumed. The law imposes the obligations or duties which exist in torts, and I must observe those duties whether I wish to or not. Similarly, one must observe all of the criminal law of the jurisdiction where he is, whether he will or not. In fact, ignorance of the law is no excuse. A man may even commit a crime, although he did not know there was a law prohibiting the act. Again, in the definition of a tort, we shall find the expression, "breach of duty imposed by law." A man arrives home late at night. ”

“ That decision related to the liability of a defendant. It may be, where a penal statute does not purport to create a civil liability, or to protect the rights of particular persons, that a violation of it will not subject the violator to an action for damages, unless his act, when viewed in connection with all the attendant circumstances, appears to be negligent or wrongful. And at the same time Courts may well hold that, in the sanctuary of the law, a violator of law imploring relief from the consequences of his own transgression will receive no favor. ”

“ In this court the doctrine is well settled that in actions of tort the jury, in addition to the sum awarded by way of compensation for the plaintiff's injury, may award exemplary, punitive, or vindictive demages, sometimes called 'smart money,' if the defendant has acted wantonly, or oppressively, or with such malice as implies a spirit of mischief or criminal indifference to civil obligations; but such guilty intention on the part of the defendant is required in order to charge him with exemplary or punitive damages. ”

“ Any injury inflicted by one person upon the person or property of another, which is not a breach of contract, is a tort. Tort is the French word for private wrong. If A carelessly drives his automobile into B's wagon, he commits a tort. If A carelessly drives his horse over B's field, he commits a tort. If A wrongfully strikes B, he commits a tort. Torts and crimes frequently over-lap. The same act may constitute a tort and a crime. If A drives his automobile faster than the laws of the state or city permit, and while so doing runs over and injures B, he commits both a tort and a crime. ”

“ The court therefore should so instruct the jury, whether such instruction be couched in the terms of the defendant’s duty to perform or of his culpability for neglect, or of his liability for the result of his action or inaction, as the case may be; and thus upon common law principles the plaintiff in an action of negligence obtains the benefit of the statute if he be one of the class for whose protection it was enacted and the breach of such statute was the efficient cause of the injury of which he complains. ”

“ The former gives to the plaintiff, the latter to the defendant, that which he deserves.
A wrong regarded as the subject-matter of civil proceedings is called a civil wrong; one regarded as the subject-matter of criminal proceedings is termed a criminal wrong or a crime. The position of a person who has, by actual or threatened wrongdoing, exposed himself to legal proceedings, is termed liability or responsibility, and it is either civil or criminal according to the nature of the proceedings to which the wrongdoer is exposed. ”

“ Whether a right created by a personal obligation can be violated by an act which constitutes a tort, i.e., by an act which does not consist of a breach of the obligation, is a question involved in much doubt and difficulty. ”

“ And if the contract provides that for any damage resulting from sending the telegram, the sender must give notice within sixty days, he is bound by this stipulation, and is without redress if he delays to act beyond the time.
Torts or Wrongs.—"A tort is an act or omission which unlawfully violates a person's right created by the law, and for which the appropriate remedy is a common law action for damages by the injured person." The right that is violated is private and not public, which marks off a tort from a crime. ”

“ If therefore the criterion of a delict, wrong, or tort be that the person who suffers it, and not the State, is conceived to be wronged, it may be asserted that in the infancy of jurisprudence the citizen depends for protection against violence or fraud not on the Law of Crime but on the Law of Tort. ”

“ The language there is 'that where by law a responsibility is made to arise from the violation of a statute knowingly, proof of something more than negligence is required,-that is, that the violation must in effect be intentional.' Not, therefore, that as a condition of liability there should be proof of something more than recklessness,-not that there should be an intentional violation,-but a violation 'in effect' intentional. ”

“ R., 371, this court recognised the power of a jury in certain actions of tort to assess against the tort-feasor punitive or exemplary damages. Whenever the injury complained of has been inflicted maliciously or wantonly, and with circumstances of contumely or indignity, the jury are not limited to the ascertainment of a simple compensation for the wrong committed against the aggrieved person. But the malice spoken of in this rule is not merely the doing of an unlawful or injurious act. ”

“ After pointing out the lack of any evidence of actual loss resulting from the alleged negligence, the court's opinion asserts-'So that, assuming that the action is in tort, there is no substantial proof of any of the special damages claimed. ”

“ Any civil injury which gives rise exclusively to one of these other forms of remedy stands outside the class of torts. The obstruction of a public highway, for example, is to be classed as a civil injury, inasmuch as it may give rise to civil proceedings instituted by the Attorney-General for an injunction; but although a civil injury, it is not a tort, save in those exceptional instances in which, by reason of special damage suffered by an individual, it gives rise to an action for damages at his suit. ”

“ Such actions, even where sounding in contract, are really founded upon the defendant’s tort. Independently of the express obligation, a defendant’s negligence, resulting in injury to the plaintiff, who has not contributed thereto, is actionable. ”

“ But the answer to the argument lies in the fact that the essence of the tort of outrage is the injury to the plaintiff's emotional well-being because of outrageous treatment by the defendant. If the conduct is sufficiently flagrant to give rise to the tort, then the injury the law seeks to redress is the anguish itself and it need not rest, parasitically, on more demonstrative loss or injury. ”

“ The proposition of the complainant would confer jurisdiction in equity in every case of a legal cause of action for unliquidated damages for a tort where one of the wrongdoers had died and an administratrix had been appointed, and the existence of assets was alleged by complainant, largely in excess of the complainant's demand, and the other defendants remained parties. ”

“ We have under consideration an action for tort which by the Constitution and laws of the State, as interpreted by the highest court in the state, gives a joint remedy against master and servant to recover for negligent injuries. This court has repeatedly held that a separable controversy must be shown upon the face of the petition or declaration, and that the defendant has no right to say that an action shall be several which the plaintiff elects to make joint. ”

“ It follows that we must turn to the Penal Code to discover when a civil action arises out of a crime or misdemeanor, and the procedure of the enforcement of such civil liability. Article 17 of the Penal Code reads as follows: 'Every person criminally liable for a crime or misdemanor is also civilly liable.' May this civil liability be enforced without a prior legal determination of the fact of the defendant's guilt of crime? Does civil liability exist at all if the defendant has been found not guilty of the acts out of which the civil liability arises? ”