ABSTRACT
Tortious liability arises from the breach of a duty primarily fixed by law; such duty is towards persons generally and its breach is redressible by an action for unliquidated damages. 1 This much-venerated definition by Winfield has not managed to quell the difficulties experienced by many writers in defining ‘tort’. Street offers a definition that states:
Tort is that branch of the civil law relating to obligations imposed by operation of law on all natural and artificial persons. These obligations, owed by one person to another, embody norms of conduct that arise outside contract and unjust enrichment. Tort enables the person to whom the obligation is owed to pursue a remedy on his own behalf where breach of a relevant norm of conduct infringes his interests to a degree recognized by the law as such an infringement. 2
