Legal Dictionary of Pakistan
Quick lookup for English, Urdu, and Latin legal terms used in Pakistani jurisprudence.
A tort et a travers
[law french] without consideration or discernment.
A tort ou a droit
[law french] right or wrong.
Atort
adv. [law french] hist. Wrongfully.
Contort
n. 1. (usu. pl.) The overlapping domain of contract law and tort law. "I have occasionally suggested to my students that a desirable reform in legal education would be to merge the first-year courses in Contracts and Torts into a single course which we could call Contorts." Grant Gilmore, The Death of Contract 90 (1974).2. A specific wrong that falls within that domain. contra (kon-tray, prep. Against or contrary to. ( As a citation signal, contra denotes that the cited authority supports a contrary view. "Observe in the note citing cases in support of a proposition mentioned in the text whether any of the cases follow the word contra, which means that a contrary rule has been laid down in them." Frank Hall Childs, Where and How to Find the Law 79-79 (1922). contra account. See ACCOUNT.
Cotortfeasor
One who, together with another, has committed a tort. See TORTFEASOR.
Extort
ub. 1. To compel or coerce (a confession, etc.) by means that overcome one's power to resist. 2. To gain by wrongful methods; to obtain in an unlawful manner; to exact wrongfully by threat or intimidation. - extortive, adj.
Federal Tort Claims Act
A statute that limits federal sovereign immunity and allows recovery in federal court for tort damages caused by federal employees, but only if the law of the state where the injury occurred would hold a private person liable for the injury. 28 USCA §§ 2671-2680 - Abbr. FTCA. See sovereign immunity under IMMUNITY. "Although it has been suggested that the maxim, 'the King can do no wrong' never had an existence in the United States, it has also been declared that in enacting the Federal Tort Claims Act, Congress recognized the manifold injustice that springs from the delimiting effect of the rule represented by that maxim. And it is said that in passing the Act, Congress intended to compensate the victims of negligence in the conduct of governmental activities in circumstances in which a private person would be liable, rather than leave just treatment to the caprice and legislative burden of individual private laws, and to eliminate the burden on Congress of investigating and passing on private bills seeking individual relief" 35 Am. Jur. 2d Federal Tort Claims Act § 1, at 296 (1967).
Home ne sera puny pur suer den briefer en court le roy, soit il a droit ou a tort
A person shall not be punished for suing out writs in the king's court, whether the person is right or wrong.
Nul prendra advantage de son tort demesne
No one shall take advantage of his own wrong.
Tort
1. A civil wrong for which a remedy may be obtained, usu. in the form of damages; a breach of a duty that the law imposes on everyone in the same relation to one another as those involved in a given transaction. 2. (pl.) The branch of law dealing with such wrongs "To ask concerning any occurrence 's this a crime or is it a tort?' is - to borrow Sir James Stephen's apt illustration - no wiser than it would be to ask concerning a man 'Is he a father or a son?' For he may well be both." J.W. Cecil Turner, Kenny's Outlines of Criminal Law 543 (16th ed. 1952). "We may . define a tort as a civil wrong for which the remedy is a common-law action for unliquidated damages, and which is not exclusively the breach of a contract or the breach of a trust or other merely equitable obligation." R.F.V. Heuston, Salmond on the law of Torts 13 (17th ed. 1977). "It might be possible to define a tort by enumerating the things that it is not. It is not crime, it is not breach of contract, it is hot necessarily concerned with property rights or problems of government, but is the occupant of a large residuary field remaining if these are taken out of the law. But this again is illusory, and the conception of a sort of legal garbage-can to hold what can be put nowhere else is of no help. In the first place, tort is a field which pervades the entire law, and is so interlocked at every point with property, contract and other accepted classifications that, as the student of law soon discovers, the categories are quite arbitrary. In the second, there is a central theme, or basis or idea, running through the cases of what are called torts, which, although difficult to put into words, does distinguish them in greater or less degree from other types of cases." W. Page Keeton et al., The Law of Torts § 1, at 2-3 (5th ed. 1984).
Tortfeasor
One who commits a tort; a wrongdoer.
Tortuous
adj. 1. Constituting a tort; wrongful <tortious conduct>. 2. In the nature of a tort <tortious cause of action>.
Torture
n. The infliction of intense pain to the body or mind to punish, to extract a confession or information, or to obtain sadistic pleasure. - torture, vb.
Un ne doit prise advantage de son tort demesne
One should not take advantage from his own wrong.
business guest. Torts
See INVITEE.
commercial tort claim.
A claim arising in tort when the claimant is either (1) an organization, or (2) an individual whose claim arose in the course of the claimant's business or profession, and the claim does not include damages arising out of personal injury or death. UCC § 9-102(a)(10).
common-law extortion
See EXTORTION (1).
concurrent tortfeasors
See TORTFEASOR.
consecutive tortfeasors
Two or more tortfeasors whose actions, while occurring at different times, combine to cause a single injury to a third party. * Such tortfeasors are jointly and severally liable.
constitutional tort
A violation of one's constitutional rights by a government officer, redressable by a civil action filed directly against the officer. ( A constitutional tort committed under color of state law (such as a civil-rights violation) is actionable under 42 USCA § 1983.
de son tort
[Law French "by his own wrongdoing"] Wrongful.
de son tort demesne
[Law French] Of a person's own wrong. 0 This is the law French equivalent of the Latin phrase de injuria. See DE INJURIA.
dignatory tort
A tort involving injury to one's reputation or honor. ( In the few jurisdictions in which courts use the phrase dignatory tort (such as Maine), defamation is commonly cited as an example.
executor de son tort
See EXECUTOR.
extortion
n. 1. The offense committed by a public official who illegally obtains property under the color of office; esp., an official's collection of an unlawful fee. - Also termed common-lain extortion. "The dividing line between bribery and extortion is shadowy. If one other than the officer corruptly takes the initiative and offers what he knows is not an authorized fee, it is bribery and not extortion. On the other hand, if the officer ,corruptly makes an unlawful demand which is paid by one who does not realize it is not the fee authorized for the service rendered, it is extortion and not bribery. In theory it would seem possible for an officer to extort a bribe under such circumstances that he would be guilty of either offense whereas the outraged citizen would be excused." Rollin M
extortionate credit transaction
See LOAN. SHARKING.
government tort
See TORT.
intentional manslaughter. See voluntary manslaughter under MANSLAUGHTER. intentional tort.
See TORT.
intentional tort
A tort committed by someone acting with general or specific intent. ( Examples include battery, false imprisonment, and trespass to land. - Also termed willful tort. Cf. NEGLIGENCE.
joint tortfeasors
Two or more tortfeasors who contributed to the claimant's injury and who may be joined as defendants in the same lawsuit. See joint and several liability under LIABILITY.
larceny by extortion
Larceny in which the perpetrator obtains property by threatening to (1) inflict bodily harm on anyone or commit any other criminal offense, (2) accuse anyone of a criminal offense, (3) expose any secret tending to subject any person to hatred, contempt, or ridicule, or impair one's credit or business reputation, (4) take or withhold action as an official, or cause an official to take or withhold action, (5) bring about or continue a strike, boycott, or other collective unofficial action, if the property is not demanded or received for the benefit of the group in whose interest the actor purports to act, (6) testify or provide information or withhold testimony or information with respect to another's legal claim or defense, or (7) inflict any other harm that would not benefit the actor. Model Penal Code § 223.4. See EXTORTION.
maritime tort
See TORT.
mass tort
A civil wrong that injures many people. ( Examples include toxic emissions from a factory, the crash of a commercial airliner, and contamination from an industrial-waste-disposal site. Cf. toxic tort.
murder by torture
A murder preceded by the intentional infliction of pain and suffering on the victim. "In some jurisdictions, a murder by torture may constitute murder in the first degree. It occurs when a defendant intentionally inflicts pain and suffering upon his victim for the purpose of revenge, extortion, or persuasion." 2 Charles E. Torcia, Wharton's Criminal Law $ 144, at 281 (15th ed. 1994).
negligent tort
A tort committed by failure to observe the standard of care required by law under the circumstances. See NEGLIGENCE.
nut tort
n. [Law French "no wrong"] Hist. A type of general denial in an action to recover lands and tenements, by which the defendant claims that no wrong was done. See NUL DISSEISIN. "The general issue, or general plea, is what traverses, thwarts, and denies at once the whole declaration; without offering any special matter whereby to evade it . . . . [I]n real actions, nul tort, no wrong done; nul disseisin, no disseisin; and in a writ of right, that the tenant has more right to hold than the demandant has to demand. These pleas are called the general issue, because, by importing an absolute and general denial of what is alleged in the declaration, they amount at once to an issue; by which we mean a fact affirmed on one side and denied on the other." 3 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 305 (1768).
personal tort
A tort involving or consisting in an injury to one's person, reputation, or feelings, as distinguished from an injury or damage to real or personal property.
prenatal tort
See TORT.
prima facie tort
See TORT.
property tort
A tort involving damage to property.
public tort
See TORT.
quasi-tort
See TORT.
sanctions tort
A means of recovery for another party's discovery abuse, whereby the judge orders the abusive party to pay a fine to the injured party for the discovery violation. ( This is not a tort in the traditional sense, but rather a form of punishment that results in monetary gain for the injured party.
successive tortfeasors
Two or more tortfeasors whose negligence occurs at different times and causes different injuries to the same third party.
tort reform
A movement to reduce the amount of tort litigation, usu. involving legislation that restricts tort remedies or that caps damages awards (esp. for punitive damages). a Advocates of tort reform argue that it lowers insurance and healthcare costs and prevents windfalls, while opponents contend that it denies plaintiffs the recovery they deserve for their injuries.
tortious battery
See BATTERY (2)
tortious interference with contractual relations
A third party's intentional inducement of a contracting party to break a contract, causing damage to the relationship between the contracting parties. - Also termed unlawful interference with contractual relations; interference with a contractual relationship; inducement of breach of contract; procurement of breach of contract.
tortious interference with prospective advantage
An intentional, damaging intrusion on another's potential business relationship, such as the opportunity of obtaining customers or employment. - Also termed interference with a business relationship.
toxic tort
See TORT
trust de son tort
See constructive trust.