ABSTRACT
A tort is a civil wrong, like a breach of contract or a breach of trust. It differs from those two because, instead of being a breach of a duty which has been undertaken by agreement, the duty which is breached in tort is a duty which is imposed by the law, irrespective of agreement. There is, nevertheless, an overlap between contract and tort, particularly where a party has contracted to supply a service. The law of contract implies a term into the contract that it will be undertaken with due care and skill. However, such a duty will arise independently of the contract by virtue of the tort of negligence. The effect of this is that there is a concurrent duty in tort and contract in such cases. The claimant may choose whether to sue for breach of contract or for the tort of negligence (usually he will hedge his bets by including both). In practice, unless the employee’s loss is purely economic (a concept we will look at later), the tort action offers advantages over the contract action (for example, the operation of the rules relating to the remoteness of damage will normally be more advantageous in tort), so that it is the tort action which we will consider here.
