From the point of view of the plaintiff, as regards the kind of damage suffered by him, actionable wrongs may be divided into four groups. We have some of a strictly personal kind; some which affect ownership and rights analogous to ownership; some which extend to the safety, convenience and profit of life gen erally—in short, to a man's estate in the widest sense; and some which may, according to circumstances, result in damage to per son, property or estate, any or all of them. Personal wrongs touch ing a man's body or honour are assault, false imprisonment, seduc tion or "enticing away" of members of his family. Wrongs to property are trespass to land or goods, "conversion" of goods (i.e., wrongful assumption of dominion over them), disturbance of easements and other individual rights in property not amount ing to exclusive possession. Trespass is essentially a wrong to possession; but with the aid of actions "on the case" the ground has been practically covered. Then there are infringements of incorporeal rights which, though not the subject of trespass proper, are exclusive rights of enjoyment and have many incidents of ownership. Actions, in some cases expressly given by statute, lie for the piracy of copyright, patents and trade-marks. A. wrong to a man's estate in the larger sense above noted is defama tion—not a strictly personal wrong, because according to English common law the temporal damage, not the insult, is, rightly or wrongly, made the ground of action and the defendant's intention is immaterial. It is even possible to write an actionable libel with out knowing that one's words can be thought to reflect on the plaintiff, or (it seems) that there is any such person : so the House of Lords decided in Hulton & Co. v. Jones in 1910. Others are deceit, so-called "slander of title" and fraudulent trade competition, which are really varieties of deceit; malicious prosecution; and nuisance, which, though most important as affect ing the enjoyment of property, is not considered in that relation only. Finally, we have the results of negligence and omission to
perform special duties regarding the safety of one's neighbours or the public, which may affect person, property, or estate.
The law of wrongs is made to do a great deal of work which, in a system less dependent on historical conditions, we should expect to find done by the law of property. We can claim or re claim our movable goods only by complaining of a wrong done to our possession or our right to possess. There is no direct asser tion of ownership like the Roman vindicatio. The law of negli gence, with the refined discussions of the test and measure of liability which it has introduced, is wholly modern; and the same may be said of the present working law of nuisance, though the term is of respectable antiquity. Most recent of all is the rubric of "unfair competition," which is fast acquiring great importance.
It will be observed that the English law of torts answers approx imately in its purpose and contents to the Roman law of obliga tions ex delicto and quasi ex delicto. When we have allowed for the peculiar treatment of rights of property in the common law, and remembered that, according to one plausible theory, the Roman law of possession itself is closely connected in its origin with the law of delicts, we shall find the correspondence at least as close as might be expected a priori. Nor is the correspondence to be explained by borrowing, for this branch of the common law seems to owe less to the classical Roman or mediaeval canon law than any other. Some few misunderstood Roman maxims have done considerable harm in detail, but the principles have been worked out in all but complete independence.
A list of modern books and monographs will be found at the end of the article on "Torts" by the present writer in the Encyclopaedia of the Laws of England (2nd ed.). Among recent editions of works on the law of torts and new publications the following may be men tioned here: Addison, by W. E. Gordon and W. H. Griffith (8th ed., 1906) ; Clerk and Lindsell, by Wyatt Paine (7th ed., 1921) ; J. W. Salmond, The Law of Torts (7th ed., 1928) ; Pollock (13th ed., 1929). In America: T. A. Street, The Foundations of Legal Liability (1906) 3 vols. of which vol. i. is on Tort; F. M. Burdick, The Law of Torts (4th ed., 1926). (F. Po.)