Basic premises of tort law

Question

What are the basic premises of tort law?

Answer 1

The basic premise of tort law is as follows:

An obligation in tort law is owed to a person (e.g., there is an obligation to provide a client with sound accounting and business advice). If that obligation is broken, the accountant is a tort feasor (one who has committed a tort), and the client would be entitled to sue the accountant for any injury or losses suffered. If the client wins the lawsuit, the court will hold the accountant liable and will probably order the accountant to pay damages to the client.

Although a tort and a crime may arise from the same set of facts (e.g., hitting someone involves both the tort of battery and the crime of assault; taking someone’s golf clubs is both a tort of conversion and a crime of theft), it is important to distinguish between the two.