法律专业侵权行为中英文对照外文翻译文献

中英文对照外文翻译

Torts

Leading legal writers agree that no one has satisfactorily defined a tort. this is partly because torts are so common, so widespread and so varied. You are far more likely to be the victim of a tort than of a crime, and you are also far more likely to commit a tort than a crime.

A tort is a civil wrong against an individual. A crime , on the other hand, is an offense against the public at large, or the state. An automobile driver who carelessly bumps into your car in a parking lot and crumples the fender had committed no crime.

Suppose, however, that after leaving the parking lot the same driver goes to a nearby bar, downs six whiskeys, then careens through a crowded city street at fifty miles an hour. Now he has committed at least these crimes: drunken driving, reckless driving and endangering the lives of others. But unless he actually damages another car or injures someone he has not violated the rights of nay individual.

A crime, then, is wrongful act against society. When a crime is

committed, it is the state’s responsibility to investigate, prosecute and bear the expense of legal acting against the defendant, in the court handling criminal matters.

A tort, on the other hand, is an act that violates your private or personal rights. If you believe someone has violated your personal rights——but has not acted against the interests of the public as a whole——it is entirely up to you to seek relief by suing him in the civil courts. If the person who you believe has legally aggrieved you is found liable——that is , if the judge or jury finds that he did in fact injure you or your property——he may be required (a) to give you relief by paying you“damages”for the injury or property loss you suffered, (b) to discontinue his wrongful acts or (c) to restore to you what he took from you. In rare cases he may be imprisoned. All monetary damages awarded to you by the court in your suit are of course yours to keep. By the same token, the cost of hiring a lawyer to handle your case is your own personal expires whether you win or lose the case. Even a defendant who wins must bear his own legal costs.

If the tort is also a crime, two separate legal actions confront the wrongdoer: yours and the state’s. we will discuss later the effect of these actions on each other. But they are independent of each other.

A tort is usually committed when someone injures you physically,

damages or misuses your property, attacks your reputation without justification or takes away your liberty and freedom of action without just cause. To recover damages for a tort you must prove either that the act was committed with deliberate intent (as when someone circulated a letter calling you a thief) or that it was the result of negligence (as in the case of the driver in the parking lot who carelessly hit your car when he had a duty to drive carefully).

In most cases you must prove that the act inflicted actual damage or injuries. A malicious act that does you no harm, such as a threat to punch you in the nose or a shove in a crowded subway, is not a sufficient cause for legal action.

Nor are you likely to recover damages from a neighbor when the healthy-looking elm tree in his yard crashes down on your roof in a windstorm. The crash was not something he intended, nor was it the result of his negligence.

A person who is proved to have committed a tort have resulted from his act. A motorist who sideswipes your car, causing you to serve and hit a pedestrian, is responsible for damages both to you (for the injure to your car) and to the pedestrian (for his dental expenses in replacing the false teeth knocked ort when your car hit him). A mugger who attacks you on the street, leading you, in defending yourself, to raise your umbrella so quickly that you hit a passerby, is