Are you in need of a personal injury attorney? Maryland tort law can be quite complex, and if you have been injured because of someone else’s negligence, it is vital to get professional legal counsel as soon as possible.

A Short History of Torts

The idea that an injured party should be compensated by the party responsible for said injury is nothing new, and in fact may be one of the most ancient of legal concepts. For example, the oldest known written laws, the Code of Ur-Nammu (dating back to around 2100 BCE and thus predating the better-known Code of Hammurabi by some three centuries), has several laws stating that one man who causes an injury to another man must pay a certain amount of silver to the injured party. In the Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy, the Mosaic Code contains law that govern (among other things) compensation for personal injuries, property damage and even slander.

During the early Middle Ages, Old Germanic laws allowed an injured party to bring a complaint before a counsel of village elders; if this party could prove that his injury or loss was caused by the person so accused, the latter was required to pay a sum of gold or silver to the victim (this was literally called a “man-price”). This sum varied according to the nature of the injury and the victim’s rank in that society.

Torts Today

Personal injury law is an incredibly broad area. Some of the areas covered by torts include:

• Intentional: Deliberate assault or acts of inflicting emotional/psychological distress
• Property: Trespass, theft of personal property or damage to the same
• Dignitary: Slander, libel, damage to one’s reputation
• Economic: Fraud, loss due to financial schemes, etc.
• Negligence: Failure to prevent an injury by exercising “duty of care”
• Liability: Injury due to a defective or toxic product

As you can see, there is some overlap with criminal law, such as assault and theft. However, in these cases, it is necessary to file criminal charges against the perpetrator with local law enforcement. in these cases. Many victims pursue civil litigation instead. There are a few reasons for this:

• It is possible to get personal compensation in civil court
• A civil case may be placed on the docket sooner than a criminal one
• The standard of proof against a defendant is lower

This last point is an important one. In a criminal case, a defendant must be found innocent if there is “reasonable doubt,” which is a very high standard. In civil litigation, a defendant may be found liable if there is a “preponderance of evidence.” Some of you may remember the O.J. Simpson case in the mid 1990s; although found innocent of the murder of his ex-wife and her companion in criminal court, he was later found liable for their wrongful deaths when sued by the victims’ families in civil court.