Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that can help answer the question.
Query: What's a tort?
A tort, in common law jurisdictions, is a civil wrong[1] that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act.
There is a group of scholars, known as The European Group on Tort Law which was established in 1992. The group meets regularly to discuss fundamental issues of tort law liability as well as recent developments and the future directions of the law of tort. The Group has founded the European Centre of Tort and Insurance Law in Vienna.
As with most common-law countries, Canadian tort law is primarily judge-made law, much of which is inherited from English tort law, which is supplemented by mostly provincial regulatory laws such as provincial automotive safety Acts. The core of Canadian tort law has not strayed far from its English origins, however, it is in the evolving areas of law, such as nuisance, defamation, or medical liability, where Canadian jurisprudence has set out on its own. The defendant in a tort suit is called the tortfeasor, and most often, financial compensation is what tort victims acquire. All torts require proof of fault in order to determine legal responsibility, however, fault is measured differently for the different types of tort. The main difference between intentional torts and unintentional torts is intent. An intentional tort is when a person intends to achieve a particular outcome that results in injury to people or damage to property, whereas an unintentional tort such as negligence, occurs when there has been a lack of duty of care or foreseeability that results in injury to people or damage to property. There are criminal code offences in Canada that could also qualify as tort law under common law. However, most victims do not sue those who are criminally charged since the accused do not have the financial means to pay back the victim or because the accused is incarcerated.
Individuals who now purchase insurance in Pennsylvania are classified as either “limited tort” or “full tort.” Tort is a legal term meaning “civil wrongdoing – in civil law, a wrongful act for which damages can be sought by the injured party.” 
Tort law in Australia consists of both common law and, to a lesser extent, legislation. A tort is a civil wrong, other than a breach of contract. Torts may be sued upon by private individuals against other private individuals (or the state) to correct a form of conduct or wrong. A large number of torts exist, and they generally derive their legal status from the common law. Since a court can define an existing tort or even recognise new ones through the common law, tort law is sometimes regarded as limitless and adaptable to modern circumstances.
Tort law – defines what a legal injury is and, therefore, whether a person may be held liable for an injury they have caused. Legal injuries are not limited to physical injuries. They may also include emotional, economic, or reputational injuries as well as violations of privacy, property, or constitutional rights.
Tort law in Canada concerns the treatment of the law of torts within the Canadian jurisdiction excluding Quebec, which is covered by the law of obligations. A tort consists of a wrongful acts or injury that lead to physical, emotional, or financial damage to a person in which another person could be held legally responsible. The two main subcategories of tort law are intentional torts and unintentional torts.
Many law professors have sought to promote the critical thinking of students in tort awareness throughout their lives and studies. However, despite the importance of the study of torts, students only study torts as a first-year doctrinal class. In a response to this and in an attempt to promote his students' attention to torts, Schwartz created the phrase "You Only Tort Once," or "YOTO."
Torts may be categorized in several ways, with a particularly common division between negligent and intentional torts. Quasi-torts may be used to refer to torts which are similar to but somewhat different from typical torts. Particularly in the United States, "collateral tort" is used to refer to torts in labour law such as intentional infliction of emotional distress ("outrage");[19] or wrongful dismissal; these evolving causes of action are debated and overlap with contract law or other legal areas to some degree.[20]
Supporters frequently base their claims of an "explosion" in the costs of tort litigation based on annual studies by Tillinghast/Towers Perrin, a major consultant to the insurance industry. In 2008, Towers Perrin reported that the cost of liability litigation has outpaced the growth of the GDP growth of 9% in estimated annual tort costs between 1951 and 2007 as opposed to a 7% average annual growth in GDP—representing 2.2% of GDP in 2004 vs. just 0.6% in 1950 and 1.3% in 1970. More recent research from the same source has found that tort costs as a percentage of GDP dropped between 2001 and 2009, and are now at their lowest level since 1984.
The Tillinghast/Towers Perrin study has been criticized by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank: "Although TTP's estimate is widely cited by journalists, politicians, and business lobbyists, it is impossible to know what the company is actually measuring in its calculation of tort costs, and impossible to verify its figures, because TTP will not share its data or its methodology, which it claims are 'proprietary.'" Tort reform supporters claim that the Towers Perrin numbers are underestimates in many ways.
The unification of European tort and insurance law is the most ambitious goal which the founders of the European Centre of Tort and Insurance Law, the European Group on Tort Law, pursue in cooperation with ECTIL. The broadly-based comparative research resulted in the drafting of “Principles of European Tort Law”, which provide a foundation for discussing a future harmonisation of the law of tort in the European Union. Further, the "Principles" shall form a stimulus for both academics and practitioners and could serve as a guideline for national legal systems, thereby leading to gradual legal harmonisation. Finally, the present isolated tort law regulations, which are at times themselves contradictory, require a uniform concept from the European Union.
Outline of tort law Causation in English law Index of tort articles Journal of Tort Law
Damages in tort are awarded generally to place the claimant in the position in which he would have been had the tort not taken place. Damages for breach of contract are generally awarded to place the claimant in the position in which he would have been had the contract not been breached. This can often result in a different measure of damages. In cases where it is possible to frame a claim in either contract or tort, it is necessary to be aware of what gives the best outcome.
Media related to Tort law at Wikimedia Commons Quotations related to Torts at Wikiquote The dictionary definition of tort at Wiktionary
In Poland, Ukraine, and Russia cakes are usually called tortes without differentiating between "cake" and "torte". In Polish, as an example, the English word "torte" is translated into Polish as "tort", but "tort" can be also translated as "layer cake" or "cream cake". Birthday cake is "tort urodzinowy" and wedding cake is "tort weselny" (though the general word for "cake" is "ciasto"). The diminutive of "tort", "torcik" is translated as "tart" or "gateau".
This article addresses torts in United States law. As such, it covers primarily common law. Moreover, it provides general rules, as individual states all have separate civil codes. There are three general categories of torts: intentional torts, negligence, and strict liability torts.
Many cookbooks include a recipe for Dobos torte and these can vary significantly. A Hungarian website, however, provides what it states is the original recipe.
Sheridan v. United States, 487 U.S. 392 (1988), was a U.S. Supreme Court case concerning what constitutes a claim "arising out of" an assault or battery within the meaning of the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). The Supreme Court held that the FTCA's intentional tort exception did not apply. 
Intentional torts include, among others, certain torts arising from the occupation or use of land. The tort of nuisance, for example, involves strict liability for a neighbor who interferes with another's enjoyment of his real property. Trespass allows owners to sue for entrances by a person (or his structure, such as an overhanging building) on their land. Several intentional torts do not involve land. Examples include false imprisonment, the tort of unlawfully arresting or detaining someone, and defamation (in some jurisdictions split into libel and slander), where false information is broadcast and damages the plaintiff's reputation. Other intentional torts include Battery, Assault, Trespass to Chattels, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, Misrepresentation, and Alienation of Affections.
Intentional tort – category of torts that describes a civil wrong resulting from an intentional act on the part of the tortfeasor (alleged wrongdoer).Dignitary torts – a specific category of intentional torts where the cause of action is being subjected to certain kinds of indignities.
An element common to some tortes is sweet icing (exceptions are several French tortes, such as Gâteau Mercédès and Gâteau Alcazar.) When the cake is layered, a thick covering of icing is placed between the layers, and there is almost always icing on the tops and sides of the torte. An example is the whiskey cake. A number of European tortes do not have layers. Some, for instance German-style "Käsesahnetorte", are unbaked.
Tort reform advocates argue that the present tort system is too expensive, that meritless lawsuits clog up the courts, that per capita tort costs vary significantly from state to state, and that trial attorneys too often receive an overly large percentage of the punitive damages awarded to plaintiffs in tort cases. (The typical contingent fee arrangement provides for the lawyer to retain one-third of any recovery.) A Towers Perrin report indicates that U. S. tort costs were up slightly in 2007, are expected to significantly increase in 2008, and shows trends dating back as far as 1950. More recent research from the same source has found that tort costs as a percentage of GDP dropped between 2001 and 2009, and are now at their lowest level since 1984. High-profile tort cases are often portrayed by the media as the legal system's version of a lottery, where trial lawyers actively seek the magic combination of plaintiff, defendant, judge, and jury. Advocates of tort reform complain of unconstitutional regulation caused by litigation, and that litigation is used to circumvent the legislative process by achieving regulation that Congress is unwilling or unable to pass.
In tort and personal injury cases, the plaintiff can receive compensation in economic, non-economic, and punitive damages. Tort reform in part aims to place caps on punitive and non-economic damages to prevent frivolous cases from taking advantage of the system, thereby benefiting those who pay for insurance, as it is argued that excessive litigation encourages insurers to pass the impact of legal expenses on to the insured by raising average premiums. However, there are a notable instances where these caps have disadvantaged plaintiffs by preventing them from acquiring compensation adequate to what their case deserves.
Quasi-tort is a legal term that is sometimes used to describe unusual tort actions, on the basis of a legal doctrine that some legal duty exists which cannot be classified strictly as negligence in a personal duty resulting in a tort nor as a contractual duty resulting in a breach of contract, but rather some other kind of duty recognizable by the law. It has been used, for example, to describe a tort for strict liability arising out of product liability, although this is typically simply called a 'tort'.
Gilmore begins the final chapter by stating that perhaps, “we might say that what is happening is that ‘contract’ is being reabsorbed into the mainstream of ‘tort’”. The artificial divisions that were used to carve contract theory out of tort a hundred years ago have all but crumbled. With all of the exceptions in contract law, liability in contract is no longer very different from liability in tort, and the merging of damages is not far behind. Quite comically, Gilmore suggests that the merging of contracts and torts should be reflected in legal education in a class called “Contorts”. Gilmore pays heed to the justifications for creating a theory of contract in the first place. Around the start of the 20th century, the legal climate was one that feared legal individualism among the states, and therefore, a general theory of contract law was appealing as it could transcend state lines. At the same time, taking commercial issues and deciding them under contract law and the guise of “questions of law” kept them from being decided by inconsistent and unreliable juries. In closing, Gilmore notes the constantly changing tides of legal thought, and states that “Contract is dead - but who knows what unlikely resurrection the Easter-tide may bring?”