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.
Grant Town is a town in Marion County, West Virginia, in the Eastern United States. The population was 657 at the 2000 census. The town was formed in 1901 with the opening of the Federal Coal and Coke Company bituminous coal mine, and was named for Robert Grant, vice president of the coal company. The "Federal No. 1" mine remained open for the next 84 years until its closure in 1985. At one point it was the largest underground coal mine in the world in terms of gross production, mining the Pittsburgh coal seam. The town was incorporated as a municipality in 1946. Grant Town is the site of an 80 Megawatt electrical generation facility, located adjacent to the coal refuse areas above the town. The plant, which was built in the early 1990s is controlled by Edison International and generates electricity using a fluidized bed combustion boiler process burning waste coal. The town is home to a local legend of a Bigfoot-type creature, sited periodically by local residents since the early 1970s. The creature, known locally as the "Grant Town Goon" is reported to live in the woods and coal waste areas to the southern and southwestern parts of the town. Grant Town is also the location of a number of the stories of the West Virginia ghost story anthology The Telltale Lilac Bush, by Fairmont State University professor Ruth Ann Musick . The town, the mine and surrounding farms are prominently featured in a number of the stories. Musick includes a description of the town, circa 1965, in an introduction to a section on mine ghost stories: "The Grant Town Mine, the scene of four of the stories here, is one of the largest in the United States, and possibly in the world. The town itself, with a population of a little over a thousand, is about seven miles northwest of Fairmont. Surrounded by hills, it is a kind of a sunken garden--a well at the bottom of the stairway of hills and highways--so that it seems to be in a world of its own. In a way, perhaps, it is. At least fourteen different European nationalities live in the town and work in the mine. " Notable Grant town natives include current University of Michigan head football coach Rich Rodriguez, and Tom Wilson, creator of the comic strip Ziggy.