What You Should Know About Damages in Tort Law

When suits or legal conflicts over issues of misrepresentation and nondisclosure occur that fall under the auspices of tort law, the forms of compensation and damages to which complainants and plaintiffs are entitled are actually intended to be fairly strict. Tort law has three defining elements: which include the gauging of standard of care (in basic terms, the determination of negligence against responsibility), the basis on deciding non-contractual situations, and the restriction of damages to losses incurred.

In other words, a plaintiff’s quest for compensation is usually limited to recouping what is, in theory, represented as existing losses (though, it should be mentioned, losses can also be speculated, namely in situations where losses can be expected to accrue into the future). This becomes significantly restricted as to the extent one can gain restitution in tort cases of misrepresentation and nondisclosure. However, depending on the extent of the damages extended in one of these particular cases, that extent of compensation could be considerable.

In any legal civil action, of which all tort cases are, full disclosure on those acting on the behalf of the plaintiff and the defendant is policy. Tort cases are centrally designed toward finding a legal basis of responsibility and consensus of opinion upon which determinations of negligence and responsibility are then based.

Loss, as mentioned, is something that can be quantified based precisely on a preexisting, concrete expenditures, but it is much more common that a determination of damages needs to be ascertained, meaning that loss has to be calculated and thus extrapolated through long term projections.

This is fairly common when determining compensation for medical conditions that have altered a plaintiff’s quality of life, which typically means that loss has to be determined against future variables such as medical expenses and lost income. A major part of the reasoning behind the restrictions on tort law is because it is not generally based upon contractual agreements and on the finding of a uniformity of opinion based upon a burden of proof, but despite this, damages are still handed out in extremely high quantities, especially in situations where jury discretion plays a significant role in the determination of compensation.

This has led to widespread calls for tort reform in many circles, feeling that these exorbitant awards have not only placed a burden on the insurance market, but have also compromised the intentions of tort law’s implicit standards of compensation.

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