tortfeasance

English

WOTD – 28 December 2016

A traffic accident near Lyon, France. Causing such an accident through negligence is a tortfeasance.

Etymology

From Anglo-Norman tortfesance, from Old French tort (“a misdeed, a wrong”) + fesance (“act, action, deed”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈtɔːtˌfiːzəns/

  • Audio (Southern England):

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• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈtɔ(ə)ɹtˌfiːzəns/, /ˈtɔːɹt-/
• Hyphenation: tort‧fea‧sance

Noun

tortfeasance (uncountable)

1. (chiefly law) The condition, or an act, of doing wrong; the act of committing a tort.
   • 1824, Humphry W[illiam] Woolrych, “Of Pleading Rights of Common, etc.”, in A Treatise on the Law of Rights of Common, London: Joseph Butterworth and Son, law booksellers, 43, Fleet Street, →OCLC, page 278:

     The defendant's tort-feasance is now set forth with the damage, and the plaintiff says, that the defendant with an intention to injure him in the enjoyment of his commonable estate, during the time of his being so entitled to his common, wrongfully put and depastured several cattle on the waste there, in consequence of which, he has been unable to make use of his commonable profits in as ample and beneficial a manner as he otherwise might.

   • 1856, Demosthenes, “Appendix IV. The Archons.”, in Charles Rann Kennedy, transl., The Orations of Demosthenes against Leptines, Midias, Androtion, and Aristocrates. Translated, with Notes, &c. (Bohn's Classical Library), volume III, London: Henry G[eorge] Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden, →OCLC, pages 260–261:

     Among the various matters of which, either from ancient authors or the testimony of grammarians, we know the Thesmothetæ to have had cognizance, are the following— […] Also a great variety of civil actions; as those for the recovery of land, houses, and mesne profits: actions for debt, deposit, breach of contract, abusive language, damage or tort-feasance: […]

   • 1964, Ronald C. Horn, Subrogation in Insurance Theory and Practice (S. S. Huebner Foundation for Insurance Education, Studies), Homewood, Ill.: Published for the S. S. Huebner Foundation for Insurance Education, University of Pennsylvania, by R. D. Irwin, →OCLC, page 107:

     In the case of successful tort subrogation claims against the federal government, for example, the economic losses resulting from government tortfeasance are shifted from the industry to the government; hence, they are distributed presumably through taxation rather than spread equally among policyholders of a specific class.

   • 1980, Chitty's Law Journal, volume 28, Toronto: Jonah Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 235, column 2:

     The conspicuous absence of the use of the term "joint" tortfeasor can be taken to mean that the position of the Ontario Court of Appeal is that the tortfeasance that is sufficient to attract the operation of § 2(1) of the Act may be joint or concurrent (several) tortfeasance.

   • 2010, Hazel Carty, “Inducing Breach of Contract”, in An Analysis of the Economic Torts, 2nd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 60:

     To procure another's tort will render the procurer jointly liable in tort. By the doctrine of joint tortfeasance, the procurement leads the law to 'impute' the commission of the same wrongful act to two or more persons at once.

Related terms

• cotortfeasor
• tort
• tortfeasor
• tortious
• tortiously