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Anyone that has chosen to file a personal injury case soon becomes exposed to the basic facts about tort law. Furthermore, if that particular claim gets filed in Ontario, then the claimant learns about Ontario’s tort law.
2 types of tort
• Intentional: Applies to violent or harmful acts, those that have been done on purpose.
• Unintentional: Concerns those accidental yet harmful actions that were carried out by a negligent individual. That negligent individual must compensate the victim for his or her losses.
Common types of intentional tort:
Assault, battery, vandalism, fraud, defamation, trespassing, sexual harassment, causing emotional distress, false imprisonment, and invasion of privacy.
Defenses most often used in court when defendant charged with having committed intentional tort:
The victim consented to performance of the violent or harmful act. A Personal Injury Lawyer in Orillia might respond to that charge by showing that the victim did not have the capacity to offer such a consent. That would certainly be the case, if an adult had molested a small child.
The defendant had acted in self-defense; the victim that has charged the defendant with intentional tort had physically threatened the defendant. The evidence produced by the defendant’s legal team must support the defendant’s claim.
The defendant had been given legal authority to control the victim’s actions. That defense might be used by a teacher, a school principal, a coach, a police officer, or the steward or stewardess on an airplane.
Any other challenges to a charge of intentional tort:
Unlike unintentional tort, a violent or harmful act done on purpose tends to produce an obvious injury, even if it is only emotional stress. For that reason, the defense team finds it hard to deny the existence of any injuries or losses. By the same token, the degree to which the victim has been harmed serves as proof of the victim’s loss. Hence, the level of that loss seldom gets challenged in the courtroom.
In other words, the nature of the challenges to the charge of intentional tort, as opposed to those used against a charge of unintentional tort showcase the main difference between the 2 different torts. Those challenges are quite different, because the harmful act done to the victim becomes more forceful, when it gets done intentionally.
In cases of unintentional tort, a lawyer must prove that a defendant breached his or her duty of care by performing or failing to perform a certain action. In cases of intentional tort, it is rather obvious that the defendant ignored his or her duty of care towards the intended victim. The defendant’s attorney tries to explain why the client had a good reason for choosing to ignore that recognized duty of care.