There will be many infringements in life. What is infringement? What are the main characteristics of tort?

Tort is a foreign word, and its original meaning generally refers to an act that violates the rules of public behavior and causes harm to people and is not allowed by society. There are two kinds of tort: narrow sense and broad sense. Tort in a narrow sense is the actor's own behavior. Tort in a broad sense includes not only tort in a narrow sense, but also the movement of objects or people controlled and dominated by the actor. This kind of tort in a broad sense is an extension of human behavior and also constitutes a tort in tort liability law. For example, if a company as a legal person infringes on its employees while performing its duties, or Tibetan mastiff breeders bear the responsibility of hurting others, it is not that the responsible person directly commits the infringement, but still bears the tort liability to the victims, because these situations belong to the broad tort category in this Law. The narrow sense of tort is general tort, while the broad sense of tort includes general tort and special tort.

Accordingly, it is generally believed that tort in civil law refers to the behavior that the actor infringes on the rights and interests protected by law and bears civil liability for the consequences. Article 2 of the Tort Liability Law stipulates that "those who infringe upon civil rights and interests shall bear tort liability". This is a broad concept of tort to adjust the legal application of all tort liability. At the same time, this article stipulates the object of infringement, that is, "civil rights and interests", and lists the specific civil rights one by one, clarifying the scope of protection of rights in this law.

Tort has the following characteristics:

First, tort is an act that infringes on the legitimate rights and interests of others, which will cause damage. An act without damage does not constitute infringement. Damage includes material damage, such as money, personal injury, death and mental damage. Only the existence of damage can reflect the legal property of the state, the collective or others, or the fact that the personal rights of others have indeed been violated.

Second, tort is a civil tort. Generally, there are three kinds of civil torts: first, acts that infringe upon others' property rights, personal rights, intellectual property rights or other legitimate rights and interests, referred to as torts, are regulated by the Tort Liability Law; Second, breach of contract obligations, referred to as breach of contract, is regulated by contract law; Third, non-performance of other civil obligations, that is, other civil violations that are neither infringement nor breach of contract, such as non-return of unjust enrichment obligations, acceptance of bequests and non-performance of obligations attached to wills. At present, these behaviors are regulated by the General Principles of Civil Law and other relevant laws.

Third, the object of infringement is absolute rights. Absolute right means that the subject of right is specific, but the subject of obligation is not, and the obligee can realize his rights without some behavior of the obligor. Property rights, personal rights and intellectual property rights are absolute rights. Since the realization of absolute rights does not need the cooperation of other people's behavior, nor is it based on the request of a specific party, once this right is infringed, it can only be protected by asking the actor to bear the tort liability through this law. This is obviously different from the object of breach of contract. The contractual creditor's right infringed by breach of contract is a kind of relative right, that is, the creditor can realize his rights only through the debtor's certain behavior. If this right is infringed, it can only be protected in accordance with the provisions of the contract law. However, the infringement of creditor's rights by a third party is neither explicitly recognized nor explicitly excluded from the scope of protection by the Tort Liability Law. If the creditor's rights can be clearly protected by the Tort Liability Law in the future legal amendment or judicial interpretation, the object of infringement is an absolute right.

Fourth, except for the special circumstances that the law stipulates that no-fault liability should be borne, tort is generally based on fault. Tort generally takes the subjective fault of the actor as the constitutive element. In some cases, the behavior of the actor has also caused damage, but the actor is subjectively not at fault and cannot be regarded as infringement. The reason why fault should be regarded as an essential element of general tort is because fault itself contains the injustice and reprehensibility of the subjective state of the actor. Of course, both the Tort Liability Law and the General Principles of the Civil Law stipulate exceptions to general torts, that is, in some occasions, even if there is no fault, the actor should be responsible for the consequences of the damage, but this needs to be clearly stipulated by law. The law does not clearly stipulate that no organ or individual can identify the behavior of innocent actors as infringement and require them to bear tort liability.

Fifth, the liability arising from tort is legal liability. The liability of the actor due to tort is based on the explicit provisions of Tort Liability Law or other special laws, not on the agreement of the parties. What kind of behavior constitutes infringement and what kind of corresponding legal responsibilities should be borne are all produced by legal provisions. This is also qualitatively different from breach of contract. The occurrence of breach of contract is based on the validity of the contract, that is, the liability for breach of contract arises from the agreement between the parties recognized by law.