Civil law, as opposed to criminal law, is the branch of law dealing with disputes between individuals and/or organizations, in which compensation may be awarded to the victim. For instance, if a car crash victim claims damages against the driver for loss or injury sustained in an accident, this will be a civil law case. Civil law courts provide a forum for deciding disputes involving torts (such as accidents, negligence, and libel), contract disputes, the probate of wills, trusts, property disputes, administrative law, commercial law, and any other private matters that involve private parties or organizations including government departments. The objectives of civil law are different from other types of law. In civil law there is the attempt to right a wrong, honor an agreement, or settle a dispute. If there is a victim, they get compensation, and the person who is the cause of the wrong pays, this being a civilized form of, or legal alternative to, revenge.
Lowman is a small unincorporated rural community in Boise County, Idaho, United States, nestled along the banks of the South Fork of the Payette River in the central part of the state. The community is situated at the junction of State Highway 21, eighty miles from Boise and what will formerly be known as the "Banks-Lowman Highway"; the name of this stretch of road will be known as Highway 2512A. It is the "Wildlife Canyon Scenic Byway. " The "Highway to Heaven" trail, stretching more than 150 miles from Idaho's capital of Boise, is the only mountain passage in the West that begins from a major city. The trail winds from 8th Street in Boise and climbs the Boise River, past the Lucky Peak Dam. Sagebrush gives way to gentle pine slopes leading to historic Idaho City, then over Mores Creek Summit and switches back down to Lowman. The route then climbs with the South Fork of the Payette River up and over Banner Summit to Stanley and the Sawtooths. The small community of Lowman is settled in a geothermally active region. Natural hot springs surface in the middle of the community as well as in many other places in the surrounding mountains. The community was named for a homesteader, Nathaniel Winfield Lowman, from Polk County, Iowa.