Important Legal Terminologies in Law of Torts | Legal Reasoning for CLAT PDF Download

Legal Terminologies

Tort

• Tort is derived from the Latin word ‘tortum’, which means ‘to twist. It includes that conduct which is not straight or lawful. It is equivalent to the English term ‘wrong’.

Causacausans

• An immediate and effective cause.

Causa sine quanon

• A necessary cause; is the cause without which the thing cannot be or the event would not have occurred.

Volenti non fit injuria

• There is no injury to one who consents.

Damnum sine injuria

• Damage without wrongful act; damage or injury inflicted without any act of injustice; loss or harm for which there is no legal remedy. It is also termed damnum absque injuria.

Injuria sine damno

• This maxim means injury without damage. Wherever there is an invasion of a legal right, the person in whom the right is vested is entitled to bring an action and may be awarded damages although he has suffered no actual damage. Thus, the act of trespassing upon another’s land is actionable even though it has done the plaintiff not the slightest harm.

Ex turpicausa non orituractio

• No action arises from a wrongful consideration.

Plaintiff and Defendant

• In tort law the two parties in a case are known as plaintiff and defendant. Plaintiff is the aggrieved party who files the suit claiming some legal injury being done to him. Defendant is the person who is alleged to have committed the tort.

Tortfeasor

• The person who commits a tort, i.e. a civil wrong is said to be a tort-feasor. When two or more persons jointly commit a civil wrong they are called ‘joint tort-feasors’.

Malice

• A condition of mind which prompts a person to do a wrongful act willfully, that is, on purpose, to the injury of another, or to do intentionally a wrongful act toward another without justification or excuse. In its legal sense, it means a wrongful act done intentionally without just cause or excuse.

Malice is a wish to injure a party, rather than to vindicate the law. The malice of two types:

• Malice in fact – Means an actual malicious intention on the part of the person who has done the wrongful act. It is also called express or actual malice.
• Malice in law – It is not necessarily personal hate or ill will, but it is that state of mind which is reckless to the law and of the legal rights of the citizen.

Motive

• Motive is that which incites or stimulates a person to do an act. It is the moving power that impels action for a definite result. Motive is the mainspring of human action. It is cause or reason. It is something that prompts a man to form an intention.

Intention

• A settled direction of the mind towards the doing of a certain act; that upon which the mind is set or which it wishes to express or achieve; the willingness to bring about something planned or foreseen.

Injury

• In legal parlance, ‘injury’ means any wrong or damage done to another, either in his person, rights, reputation or property. Meaning under Penal Code, 1860 (section 44) – the word injury denotes any harm illegally caused to any person, in body, mind, reputation or property.

Types of Wrong

Wrong can be of two types – Public and Private. The tort is a Private Wrong, whereas Crime is a Public Wrong. Torts are tried in Civil Courts.

• Public wrong – These are acts that are tried in Criminal Courts and are punishable under the Penal Law (such as the Indian Penal Code, 1860 in India)
• Private wrongs – These are acts against an individual person or a person within a community and are tried in Civil Courts.

Hurt

• Whoever causes bodily pain, disease, or infirmity to any person is said to cause hurt.

Malfeasance

• It is a wrongful act that the actor has no legal right to do or any wrongful conduct which affects, interrupts, or interferes with the performance of official duty, or an act for which there is no authority or warrant of law or which a person ought not to do at all, or has contracted not, to do. The word ‘malfeasance’ would apply to a case where an act prohibited by law is done by a person.

Misfeasance

• Unlawful use of power; wrongful performance of a normally legal act; injurious exercise of lawful authority; official misconduct; breach of law. The word ‘misfeasance’ would apply to a case where a lawful act is done in an improper manner.

Nonfeasance

• Non performance of some act which ought to be performed, omission to perform a required duty at all, or total neglect of duty. Nonfeasance would apply to a case where a person omits to do some act prescribed by law.
• Distinction between ‘Misfeasance’, ‘nonfeasance’ and ‘malfeasance’ – Misfeasance is the improper doing of an act that a person may wilfully do. Nonfeasance means the omission of an act that a person ought to do. Malfeasance is the doing of an act that a person ought not to do at all.