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.
Pitcairn is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, fifteen miles (twenty-four kilometers) east of Pittsburgh. Early in the 20th century, it was the site of large railroad yards and shops that employed nearly ten thousand men. In 1900, 2,601 people lived there. In 1910, 4,975 lived there, and in 1940, Pitcairn was home to 6,310 people. The population was 3,689 at the 2000 census. Pitcairn operates its own power distribution system and municipally owned cable television system. Pitcairn was the birthplace of bandleader Ted Weems and of musical instrument maker Carl Thompson, as well as early NFL football player Harry Robb. In 1971 the first Fox's Pizza Den was opened on Broadway Blvd. in Pitcairn. It remains open to this day. Pitcairn Yard, which opened in 1892 and was for many decades a major switching yard of the Pennsylvania Railroad, later the Penn Central Railroad and Conrail, is now, since the 1990s, an intermodal freight transport yard for the Norfolk Southern Railway, where containers are taken off trains and transferred to trucks for delivery, or from trucks to trains.