A tort is a civil wrong that causes harm or loss to another person, resulting in legal liability for the wrongdoer. Torts fall into three broad categories: intentional torts such as assault and fraud, negligent torts such as careless driving, and strict liability torts that impose responsibility without regard to fault, as in defective product cases. The most common tort is negligence, which requires a plaintiff to prove four elements: a duty of care owed by the defendant, a breach of that duty, causation linking the breach to the injury, and actual damages. Proximate cause further limits liability to harms that were a foreseeable result of the defendant's conduct and not too remote to warrant compensation.
When a tort is established, courts may award damages as monetary compensation, classified as compensatory for actual losses, punitive to punish wrongdoing, or nominal as a token amount recognizing that a right was violated. In some situations, money is inadequate, so a court may issue an injunction, a court order requiring a party to do or refrain from doing a specific act, including temporary restraining orders and preliminary or permanent injunctions. Specific torts include defamation, a false statement presented as fact that injures reputation with libel being written and slander being spoken, conversion, the unauthorized exercise of control over another's personal property that is essentially the civil equivalent of theft, and the closely related doctrines of assault, causing fear of imminent harmful contact, and battery, the actual harmful contact itself.
Defendants in tort cases may raise several defenses to limit or avoid liability. Comparative negligence allocates fault among the parties based on each person's degree of negligence, allowing recovery reduced by the plaintiff's percentage of fault, while the older contributory negligence doctrine completely bars recovery if the plaintiff contributed in any way and survives only in a few jurisdictions. Assumption of risk asserts that the plaintiff knowingly and voluntarily accepted a known danger, whether expressed through a signed waiver or implied by participating in inherently risky activities. Employers may also be held vicariously liable for the wrongful acts of their employees under the doctrine of respondeat superior, "let the master answer," enabling injured parties to seek compensation from the employer rather than just the individual worker.