Contrasting liability in tort with contractual liability

Liabitity in contract – you agree to be bound by terms and the concept of privity says that you need to provide consideration to a contract to be able to claim. In tort this cannot be the case, although there is an equivalent: damnun sine injuria (damage without wrong). There is no clear definition of tort, tort is doing something wrong. Liability in tort – you have a duty to respect rights such as:to speak, to move, to live in comfort etc. And if you breach someone rights you will be a tortfeasor (who did wrong) and person can sue you.

Privity is not a defense and the following example supports that fact. Two friends went out to the café and one of them bought beer for both. Other guy has drunk half of the bottle and then decided to pour beer from a bottle into a glass and suddenly the dead snail fall out. Next day he was sick and it was a food poisoning. He wants to sue Beer Company for health damage but according to the law he cannot sue because he was not a party of the contract.

Types of tort

Ø Negligence – someone do not take enough care.

A good example of negligence is a story about Welsh Plastic and a company owns a factory. The company needs lots of water to produce their stuff and there is a contract between the factory and water company that provided one hydrant to this factory. Welsh Plastic driver was inattentive and bumped into the hydrant – factory cannot produce anything and became getting losses and are going to sue welsh Plastic for that. But company owns the factory cannot do that because the hydrant is not their property, only Water Company can sue Welsh Plastic.

Ø Nuisance – smell, noise, pollution.

For example, it is autumn and there are lots of leaves around in my garden. I have collected them and started to burn. The weather was windy and the smoke was flying to my neighbour`s house. That was a breaching of my neighbours` right to live in comfort.

Ø Trespass – going on someone land.

If I do not burn leaves from previous example and put them on neighbours` land it will a trespass.

Ø Libel (written) and lander (spoken) – saying something bad or not true about someone.