What would happen when someone harmed someone else under Old English Law?

What did this lead to?

When someone harmed someone else, the clan of the harmed person could retaliate on the clan of the harmer. An "eye for an eye" philosophy existed.

This frequently lead to a lot of violence.

What did tort law start intitially focus on?

What was created to resolve these conflicts?

What was the benefits of the community system?

What was one main problem?

This was a quick and painless system unless the panel disagreed with the community.

This would cause people to question the authority of the panel.

What was developed to reaplce "eye for an eye"?

How was monetary compensation initially determined?

Who was it initially given to?

Was there still any difference between tort and criminal law?

Early in Anglo-Saxon history, people historically were given a value based on their gender, rank, age, etc.

Compensation was given to the clan and not to individuals.

At this point, there was still no difference between tort and cirminal law.

How did the Norman Invasion change the system of law in England?

What were misdeamnors as this time?

After the Norman invasion of 1066, royal acts were developed to deal with Kings law. These exercised a power over a distinct set of laws called felonies.

Misdeamenors were still local common law.

The Three kinds of trespass?

What did they eventually become?

1) Tresspass vi et armis = assault and battery

2) Trespass de bonis aspartatis = trespass with goods (stealing).

3) Trespass quare clausum gregit (tresspas of close)- trespassing on land

These three became distinct kinds of wrongs and they became torts

When did tort law get its own kind of heading?

What is its importance today?

When common law was published in the 19th century, tort law was published as its own heading.

Tort law makes up most of the kind of law we deal with today.

What are the fucntions of tort law?

What does it protect from?

1) Provides remedies for economic affairs

2) discrimination (racism).

3) Regulates the environment, medical practices, wrongful death, motor vehicles and public road ways

*It protects for economic loss caused by the above kinds of actions.

Who is the plaintiff in a torts case?

What may the defendant be forced to do in a torts case (if they loose)?

In torts, the plaintiff is a victim who has been harmed.

The defendant may be forced to pay $ or do or not do something.

When shit happens, the burden of $ may be born by the victim, community, responsible person, or someone else entirely.

Tort laws mean that instutions allow for the shift of costs of harm to other people.

What does tort law provide?

What does is not gurantee?

Under tort law who should be held responsible for cleaning up a mess?

(an example)

1) Seeks to compensate victims for injuries suffered becaues of another's culpability in action or in inaction

2) Seeks to shift the cost of injry to the person responsible for inflicting them.

3) Discourages injurious and/or future, risk, careless behavior.

4) Vindicates compromise, diminished, or emasculated legal rights and interests

What does society demand that you do with regards to my interests?

How is this related to fault/strict liability torts?

Societ demands that you take my interests into account when you act.

So society demands that we act responsibly and this is the underlying idea behind fault/strict liability torts.

How can a victim hold the actor accountable in court?

What must they do?

What are the chances that they will be successful?

To do this, the victim has to decide what kind of injury and then what kind of punishments (i.e. kinds of damages).

So you first haave to look at the law broekn and then look at damages.

A victim hs to do a lot toget this and this may not get in at trial (this is a 50/50 role of the dice.

What sometimes influences a victim's chances of winning?

What do you (as atty/para) have to tell the client

Sometimes it has nothing to do with the facts.

You must tell the client theat they may not win.

Clients can loose simply because the jury does not like them or may not believe them, even if they are not telling the truth.

What sometimes happens with the amounts of damages awarded?

What might the defendant's attorney do if the amount of damages is too high?

What is this called?

The defendant's attorneys may ask the judge to remove some of the amount from the judgment of the judge can cut down the amount of the award given by the jury because it's too high.

This is called a remittor.