This branch of our law was one of the latest to receive systematic treatment, either by judges or by text writers. Frederick Pollock declared, in 1886, that the really scientific treatment of this topic by judges begins with the decisions of the last fifty years. In 1S82 the New York Court of Appeals asserted that an accurate and perfect definition of a tort was nowhere to be found; nor did it essay to formulate one. The earliest treatise in which an attempt was made to systematize the law of torts was published in 1S59.
Various classifications of torts have been sug gested. One of them is as follows: "First, law ful acts done by wrongful means or of malice. Second, unlawful acts. Third, events caused by negligence." The first includes deceit, slander of title, malicious prosecution, and malicious in terference with contracts between others. The second class includes assault and battery, conversion, defamation, false imprisonment, nuisance, trespass, and some other forms of tort. The tbird embraces the various phases of negli gence. (See these various topics in this cyclopedia.) A similar classification was sug gested by a learned judge in a recent decision of the House of Lords, and has received some judi cial approval in the United States. It follows the ordinary classification of personal rights. The first class of torts, according to his suggestion, includes all wrongful invasions of the right of reputation. The second class includes such in vasions of the rights of bodily safety and free dom. The third class includes such invasions of the rights of property.
The domain of tort in our law is more ex tensive than that covered by actions ex delieto in Roman law. Speaking broadly, a wrongful
intent was necessary to such actions. Mere negligence might subject one to an action quasi ex contract?' if by agreement he had assumed a duty of care; but otherwise it subjected him to no liability. Certain wrongs were styled quasi ex delicto, but as a rule the actionable character of these was of praetorian origin. In Louisiana, whose jurisprudence rests upon a basis of Roman law, civil wrongs are divided into 'offenses,' or illegal acts which are done wickedly and with intent to injure, and 'quasi offenses,' or those which cause injury to another but proceed from error, neglect, or imprudence. The term 'quasi-tort' has made its appearance in judicial decisions and recent legal treatises, both in England and the United States. It is not used as synonymous with the 'quasi offense' of Louisiana, nor with the 'quasi-delict' of Roman and Scotch law. It designates an act or omis sion, which subjects the wrongdoer to a contract or to a tort action, at the injured party's option; such, for example, as a merely negligent injury by a common carrier to a passenger. Consult: Hilliard, The Law of Torts (Boston, 1S59) ; Ad dison, A Treatise on the Law of Torts (London, 1860; Albany, 1876) ; Bishop, Commentaries on the Non-Contraet Law (Chicago, 1889) ; Cooley, The Law of Torts (Chicago, 1S95) ; Jaggard, The Law of Torts (Saint Paul, 1895) ; Clerk and Lindsell, The Law of Torts (2d ed., London, 1896) ; Pollock, The Law of Torts (London and New York, 1901) ; Sohm, The Institutes of the Roman. Law (Oxford, 1892).