Delict

Inthe civillaw

A wrong or injury; an offense; a violation of public or private duty. It will be observed that this word, tuken in its mest general sense, is wider in both directions than our English term “tort.” On the one hand, it includes those wrongful aets which, while directiy affecting some individual or his property, yet extend in their injurious consequences to the peace or security of the community atlarge, and hence rise to the grade of crimes or misdemeanors. ‘hese acts were termed in the Roman law “public deliets;” while those for which the only penalty exacted was compensation to the person primuarily injured were denominated “private delicts.” On the other hand, the term appears to have included injurious actions which transpired withont any malicious intention on the part of the doer. Thus Pothier gives the name “quasi delicts” to the acis of a person who, without malignity, but by an inexcusable imprudence, causes an injury to another, Poth. Obl. 116. But the term is used in modern jurisprudence as a convenient synonym of “tort;” that is, a wrongful and injurious violation of a jus in rem or right available against all the world. This appears in the two contrasted phrases, “actions ex eontractu” and “actions ex delicta.”