Tort: Definition, Nature, Scope and object of Tort, Tort in India

You are cycling along Marine Drive and a parked taxi's door swings open. You fall, your wrist breaks, your phone cracks. You never signed anything with the taxi driver, and he has not committed any offence you could point to in a statute. Yet you expect him, or his insurer, to pay. What gives you that right? The answer is the law of torts, and this topic tells you what a tort is, what it is for, and how it lives in India without a single Torts Act.

In two minutes

A tort is a civil wrong, arising from breach of a duty that the law itself imposes on everyone, for which the usual remedy is an action for unliquidated damages; it is not merely a breach of contract or of trust.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Law of Torts, Motor Accident Claims and Consumer Protection on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.