Short answers, pulled from the story.
A tort is a civil wrong, other than breach of contract, that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm and results in legal liability for the person who committed the act. Unlike a crime, which is punishable by the state, a tort is addressed through a civil lawsuit in which the injured party seeks compensation in damages. Some acts, such as assault and battery, can give rise to both a tort claim and a criminal prosecution simultaneously.
Donoghue v Stevenson, decided by the House of Lords in 1932, established the tort of negligence as a distinct cause of action in English and Scottish law. The case arose when Mrs. Donoghue drank from an opaque bottle containing a decomposed snail and became ill. Because she had no contract with the manufacturer, she sued in negligence, and the court's ruling brought England into alignment with the United States on the requirements for negligence claims.
Common law jurisdictions recognize several categories of torts: negligent torts, intentional torts, and strict liability torts. Intentional torts are further divided into torts against the person (such as assault, battery, and false imprisonment), property torts (such as trespass to land and conversion), and dignitary torts (such as defamation and invasion of privacy). Economic torts cover fraud, tortious interference with trade, and negligent misrepresentation.
New Zealand scrapped personal injury tort law and medical malpractice tort law following recommendations from the Royal Commission in 1967, which called for a no-fault compensation scheme. The rationale was securing equal treatment for all victims regardless of fault. This led to the creation of the Accident Compensation Corporation, a universal no-fault insurance system. Professor Patrick Atiyah's scholarship, published in Accidents, Compensation and the Law in 1970, articulated much of the underlying reasoning.
Contributory negligence, established in the English case Butterfield v. Forrester in 1809, originally barred a plaintiff from recovering any damages if they were at all at fault, even by one percent. Comparative negligence, adopted by many jurisdictions as a more equitable alternative, reduces the plaintiff's damages in proportion to their degree of fault. As of 2007, contributory negligence as a complete bar to recovery exists in only a few U.S. states, including North Carolina and Maryland.
English tort law imposes strict liability for hazardous activities under the rule in Rylands v Fletcher but limits that liability to damage to land or interests in land. Indian courts developed this into an absolute liability doctrine under M. C. Mehta v. Union of India, which holds enterprises absolutely liable, without exception, to compensate everyone affected by accidents arising from hazardous activity, including personal injuries and not just damage to property.