The problem before the rule
Is carelessness enough, or must the customer prove something more?
A restaurant carelessly serves contaminated food, causing a customer serious illness despite there being no individually negotiated safety promise.
Reveal the legal analysis
The restaurant may owe a legal duty of care independent of contract. Breach, causation and proven injury can support a tort claim.
A duty imposed by law can exist alongside contractual and statutory duties.The shortest useful answer
A tort is a civil wrong arising from breach of a duty fixed by law, for which the court provides a remedy.
- Identify the essential elements of tort liability.
- Separate legal injury from factual loss.
- Explain why tort law develops through precedent.
Doctrine 01
Core elements of a tort
A harmful event is not enough unless the law recognizes a duty and its breach.
- Legal duty
- The defendant must owe a duty imposed by law, generally toward persons who may be affected by the conduct.
- Breach
- An act or omission must fall below the legal standard or invade a protected right.
- Legal injury
- The conduct must violate a right or cause legally recognized harm. Mere disappointment or moral blame may be insufficient.
- Causation and remoteness
- The claimant must connect the breach to the complained-of harm, which must not be legally too remote.
- Remedy
- Damages are common, but injunction, restitution and other relief may better protect the right involved.
Doctrine 02
Nature of tort liability
Tort law protects interests in bodily safety, liberty, property, reputation and economic relations.
- Duty fixed by law
- The obligation does not depend entirely on a promise between claimant and defendant.
- Usually unliquidated damages
- The court assesses compensation after the wrong instead of enforcing a pre-agreed sum.
- Fault and no-fault liability
- Many torts require intention or negligence, while strict and absolute liability can operate without ordinary proof of fault.
- Uncodified but not uncertain
- Indian tort law draws on precedent, statutes and constitutional principles rather than one exhaustive tort code.
Read the judgment like a lawyer
The cases that move the rule
A citation is useful only when you can explain what changed after the court spoke.
Core authority
Donoghue v. Stevenson
[1932] AC 562
- Facts that matter
- A friend bought Donoghue a sealed bottle of ginger beer. After part of it was consumed, a decomposed snail was found inside. Donoghue had no contract with the manufacturer.
- The legal question
- Can a manufacturer owe a duty of care to the ultimate consumer despite the absence of contractual privity?
- The holding
- A manufacturer may owe a duty of reasonable care to the ultimate consumer who is closely and directly affected by the product.
- Why the court got there
- The product was intended to reach the consumer without a reasonable chance of intermediate examination. Foreseeability and closeness of relationship justified a direct duty of care.
- Where it earns its place
- Use it to explain duty of care and the movement from narrow forms of action to general negligence principles.
Development authority
M.C. Mehta v. Union of India
(1987) 1 SCC 395
- Facts that matter
- Oleum gas escaped from a hazardous industrial unit operating in a densely populated part of Delhi, causing death and injury.
- The legal question
- Should an enterprise carrying on hazardous activity receive the traditional exceptions available under strict liability?
- The holding
- Indian tort law can develop remedies suited to local constitutional and industrial conditions, including absolute liability for hazardous enterprises.
- Why the court got there
- The Court imposed an absolute and non-delegable obligation because the enterprise creates exceptional risk and is best placed to prevent and absorb the resulting harm.
- Where it earns its place
- Use it to show that tort principles are capable of judicial growth.
Write it under pressure
A clean answer sequence
- 01
Give a functional definition of tort.
- 02
Set out duty, breach, injury, causation and remedy.
- 03
Explain fault and strict-liability categories.
- 04
Apply each element to the facts before concluding.
The 60-second recall
Close the page only when these feel obvious
- 01Tort is a civil wrong.
- 02The duty is primarily fixed by law.
- 03Legal injury and causation are essential.
- 04Damages are usually assessed by the court.
- 05Liability may be fault-based or strict.
Can a tort exist without a contract?
Does every tort require actual financial loss?
Why is causation separately tested?
Questions students actually ask
Clear the last two doubts
Is tort law fully codified in India?
No. It develops through common-law precedent, Indian judgments, constitutional remedies and subject-specific statutes.
Are damages the only tort remedy?
No. Courts may also grant injunctions, restitution and other appropriate relief.