3 ms·

What Is a Tort?

37 points by bookofjoe 8mo ago

jjgreen 8mo ago
An Irish lady of easy virtue.
- pavel_lishin 8mo ago
  A baby tortoise.
  - teachrdan 8mo ago
    But what's a pupper?
    - chuckadams 8mo ago
      One who pups, of course.
  - anyonecancode 8mo ago
    What the teacher did.
piker 8mo ago
For those interested, the statement of facts in Palsgraf is regarded as some of the best legal writing of all time. It's really quite interesting in both its lack of detail but clarity. > Plaintiff was standing on a platform of defendant's railroad after buying a ticket to go to Rockaway Beach. A train stopped at the station, bound for another place. Two men ran forward to catch it. One of the men reached the platform of the car without mishap, though the train was already moving. The other man, carrying a package, jumped aboard the car, but seemed unsteady as if about to fall. A guard on the car, who had held the door open, reached forward to help him in, and another guard on the platform pushed him from behind. In this act, the package was dislodged, and fell upon the rails. It was a package of small size, about fifteen inches long, and was covered by a newspaper. In fact it contained fireworks, but there was nothing in its appearance to give notice of its contents. The fireworks when they fell exploded. The shock of the explosion threw down some scales at the other end of the platform, many feet away. The scales struck the plaintiff, causing injuries for which she sues.
- tptacek 8mo ago
  "The scales startled a sleeping cat inside the station. The cat lept in alarm, claws bared, and clung to a length of cord. Suspended by the cord was a small anvil, dangling above a board balanced atop a saw horse. Frayed from the cat's claws, the cord severed, and the anvil plunged towards one end of the board. On the other end of that board was a marble..."
  - DebtDeflation 8mo ago
    This comment brought me back in time 40+ years to a Saturday morning perched in front of our TV. Thank you.
    - rzzzt 8mo ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnzLconK4Tw&t=73s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnzLconK4Tw&t=73s
  - behehebd 8mo ago
    Sue the enthusiastic butterfly in 2004
  - pseudohadamard 8mo ago
    Now when the bricks had fallen from the barrel to the floor I then outweighed the barrel and I started down once more I clung on tightly to the rope, and sped toward the ground -- And landed on the broken bricks a-lying all around. I lay there groaning on the ground and thought I'd passed the worst When the barrel hit the pulley wheel, and then the bottom burst A shower of bricks came down on me, 'twas then I gave up hope And lying there upon the ground, I let go the bloody rope. [...]
- jfengel 8mo ago
  So that's what counts as good legal writing, huh? I see a lot of extraneous detail (e.g. "bound for another place", "a package of small size, about fifteen inches long, and was covered by a newspaper"). The sentence "The fireworks when they fell exploded" is clunky. It's also missing the critical detail of who she is suing. The point of the story is to explain how she got injured, but gives no idea who is actually involved. The guards? The other man who got on the train and vanished from the story? (Turns out it's the railroad company, who is not mentioned in the story at all.) Wikipedia summarizes the relevant facts in one sentence: Two men attempted to board the train before [the plaintiff's]; one (aided by railroad employees) dropped a package that exploded, causing a large coin-operated scale on the platform to hit her. Incidentally, can you set off fireworks just by dropping them? That sounds unlikely to me.
Tangurena2 8mo ago
A tort is a harm done to a person. Generally, this word is only used in civil legal proceedings. Because it can be a fuzzy concept, books and (non-criminal & non-constitutional) courses on law (at least in the US) will spend a lot of time on torts.
- orthoxerox 8mo ago
  Thank you. I had read a few pages of the linked article and was disappointed that it contained no legible definition of the term.
- pseudohadamard 8mo ago
  Not to be confused with a torte, which only harms your waistline.
RattlesnakeJake 8mo ago
> What Is a Tort? My brain always starts with the assumption that it's some sort of British pastry, and takes a minute to adjust.
- matt_daemon 8mo ago
  A torte is (according the Wikipedia): > a rich, usually multilayered, cake that is filled with whipped cream, buttercreams, mousses, jams, or fruit So you could be excused
frugalmail 8mo ago
> distributing the costs of accidents to those who can best bear them wtf? I thought it was the entity/entities responsible for the accident?
- lawtalkinghuman 8mo ago
  Yes, that's the general rule. You then get lots of interesting exceptions and difficulties in applying that rule: who pays when you have multiple potential defendants (but some of them have died or gone out of business or are in a different jurisdiction), or there are fiddly causation issues, or the defendant is an organisation that's vicariously liable for their employee/contractor/authorised religious leader/any number of other relationships, or there's insurance involved, or there's some third party interest, or the purportedly tortious act was mandated by some law or other obligation, or the government decides to set up some kind of alternative process of compensation which may or may not indemnify the tortfeasor, and so on and so on. When dealing with the not-so-straightforward cases, appellate courts do look at questions like "is this a fair and equitable distribution of the cost?" and legal scholars compare the pros and cons of tort liability to other mechanisms (compensation by the government, industry self-regulation, no-fault/strict liability, mandatory insurance etc).
andyferris 8mo ago
The methodology here is interesting. I'm looking at this exercise in exploring hypothetical situations as like throwing fuzz tests at the law, and using the results to correct the "code" (either legal code or how to interpret the common law, depending on how your juristiction functions). I can't say it's a bad approach for "engineering" a good system.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]

What Is a Tort?

37 points by bookofjoe 8mo ago

jjgreen 8mo ago

An Irish lady of easy virtue.

pavel_lishin 8mo ago
A baby tortoise.
- teachrdan 8mo ago
  But what's a pupper?
  - chuckadams 8mo ago
    One who pups, of course.
- anyonecancode 8mo ago
  What the teacher did.

piker 8mo ago

For those interested, the statement of facts in Palsgraf is regarded as some of the best legal writing of all time. It's really quite interesting in both its lack of detail but clarity. > Plaintiff was standing on a platform of defendant's railroad after buying a ticket to go to Rockaway Beach. A train stopped at the station, bound for another place. Two men ran forward to catch it. One of the men reached the platform of the car without mishap, though the train was already moving. The other man, carrying a package, jumped aboard the car, but seemed unsteady as if about to fall. A guard on the car, who had held the door open, reached forward to help him in, and another guard on the platform pushed him from behind. In this act, the package was dislodged, and fell upon the rails. It was a package of small size, about fifteen inches long, and was covered by a newspaper. In fact it contained fireworks, but there was nothing in its appearance to give notice of its contents. The fireworks when they fell exploded. The shock of the explosion threw down some scales at the other end of the platform, many feet away. The scales struck the plaintiff, causing injuries for which she sues.

tptacek 8mo ago
"The scales startled a sleeping cat inside the station. The cat lept in alarm, claws bared, and clung to a length of cord. Suspended by the cord was a small anvil, dangling above a board balanced atop a saw horse. Frayed from the cat's claws, the cord severed, and the anvil plunged towards one end of the board. On the other end of that board was a marble..."
- DebtDeflation 8mo ago
  This comment brought me back in time 40+ years to a Saturday morning perched in front of our TV. Thank you.
  - rzzzt 8mo ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnzLconK4Tw&t=73s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnzLconK4Tw&t=73s
- behehebd 8mo ago
  Sue the enthusiastic butterfly in 2004
- pseudohadamard 8mo ago
  Now when the bricks had fallen from the barrel to the floor I then outweighed the barrel and I started down once more I clung on tightly to the rope, and sped toward the ground -- And landed on the broken bricks a-lying all around. I lay there groaning on the ground and thought I'd passed the worst When the barrel hit the pulley wheel, and then the bottom burst A shower of bricks came down on me, 'twas then I gave up hope And lying there upon the ground, I let go the bloody rope. [...]
jfengel 8mo ago
So that's what counts as good legal writing, huh? I see a lot of extraneous detail (e.g. "bound for another place", "a package of small size, about fifteen inches long, and was covered by a newspaper"). The sentence "The fireworks when they fell exploded" is clunky. It's also missing the critical detail of who she is suing. The point of the story is to explain how she got injured, but gives no idea who is actually involved. The guards? The other man who got on the train and vanished from the story? (Turns out it's the railroad company, who is not mentioned in the story at all.) Wikipedia summarizes the relevant facts in one sentence: Two men attempted to board the train before [the plaintiff's]; one (aided by railroad employees) dropped a package that exploded, causing a large coin-operated scale on the platform to hit her. Incidentally, can you set off fireworks just by dropping them? That sounds unlikely to me.

Tangurena2 8mo ago

A tort is a harm done to a person. Generally, this word is only used in civil legal proceedings. Because it can be a fuzzy concept, books and (non-criminal & non-constitutional) courses on law (at least in the US) will spend a lot of time on torts.

orthoxerox 8mo ago
Thank you. I had read a few pages of the linked article and was disappointed that it contained no legible definition of the term.
pseudohadamard 8mo ago
Not to be confused with a torte, which only harms your waistline.

RattlesnakeJake 8mo ago

> What Is a Tort? My brain always starts with the assumption that it's some sort of British pastry, and takes a minute to adjust.

matt_daemon 8mo ago
A torte is (according the Wikipedia): > a rich, usually multilayered, cake that is filled with whipped cream, buttercreams, mousses, jams, or fruit So you could be excused

frugalmail 8mo ago

> distributing the costs of accidents to those who can best bear them wtf? I thought it was the entity/entities responsible for the accident?

lawtalkinghuman 8mo ago
Yes, that's the general rule. You then get lots of interesting exceptions and difficulties in applying that rule: who pays when you have multiple potential defendants (but some of them have died or gone out of business or are in a different jurisdiction), or there are fiddly causation issues, or the defendant is an organisation that's vicariously liable for their employee/contractor/authorised religious leader/any number of other relationships, or there's insurance involved, or there's some third party interest, or the purportedly tortious act was mandated by some law or other obligation, or the government decides to set up some kind of alternative process of compensation which may or may not indemnify the tortfeasor, and so on and so on. When dealing with the not-so-straightforward cases, appellate courts do look at questions like "is this a fair and equitable distribution of the cost?" and legal scholars compare the pros and cons of tort liability to other mechanisms (compensation by the government, industry self-regulation, no-fault/strict liability, mandatory insurance etc).

andyferris 8mo ago

The methodology here is interesting. I'm looking at this exercise in exploring hypothetical situations as like throwing fuzz tests at the law, and using the results to correct the "code" (either legal code or how to interpret the common law, depending on how your juristiction functions). I can't say it's a bad approach for "engineering" a good system.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]