what is tort law 
tort law is the area of the law that covers most civil suits in general any claim that arises in civil court with the exception of contractual disputes falls under tort law the concept of tort law is to redress a wrong done to a person and provide relief from the wrongful acts of others usually by awarding monetary damages as compensation the original intent of tort is to provide full compensation for proved harms lawsuits involving contracts fall under contract law tort law requires those who are found to be at fault for harming others to compensate the victims typical harms include the loss of past or future income payment of medical expenses and payment for pain and suffering there may also be additional punitive damages that are meant to punish the plaintiff in excess of full compensation understanding tort lawtort law can be split into three categories negligent torts intentional torts and strict liability torts examples of tort lawin february 2016 a self driving car made by google crashed into a bus in mountain view calif the car sensed a group of sandbags positioned around a storm drain and swerved into another lane to avoid them slamming into the side of a public transit bus this was the first reported case of a self driving car causing an accident not just being a part of one according to liability tort law drivers can seek compensation from a manufacturer for a faulty part of a car usually an airbag or a tire however this liability tort now extends to self driving cars and google and others in the nascent self driving vehicle business could be found liable for the damages 1amy williams filed a negligence lawsuit against quest diagnostics and its subsidiary athena diagnostics for the wrongful death of her two year old son christian millare in 2007 athena diagnostics misclassified a mutation in millare s gene the plaintiff argued that the misclassification led the child s doctors to use the wrong treatment for his symptoms the mutation directly resulted in his seizure and death in 2008 in 2018 11 years after the child s death the south carolina supreme court ruled that a genetic testing lab could be classified as a healthcare provider under state law 2an example of an intentional tort is the ruling between the website gawker and pro wrestler hulk hogan on march 18 2016 hogan was awarded 140 million in damages since it was deemed that gawker intentionally invaded his privacy in order to obtain video evidence of a private act 3tort reformthe issue of tort reform relates to the critical stance taken against many tort cases especially in the united states proponents of tort reform argue that many lawsuits today are frivolous according to the court statistics project approximately 12 5 million civil lawsuits were filed in state trial courts in the united states in 2022 and advocates of tort reform claim that far too many of these are based on flimsy grounds or are filed to intimidate or influence outcomes 4these frivolous cases are expensive and time consuming using up public resources that could be better expended elsewhere advocates of tort reform in the u s have especially focused on lawsuits related to medical malpractice claims and allegations of billing overcharges including the unnecessary use of costly medical tests and the high price of drugs due to patents 