Part 2. Civil Law.

Although most laymen ’s perception of law is associated with criminal acts, in fact the greater part of our law is civil law. For the most part civil law is concerned with the rights and duties of individuals (including legal individuals such as limited liability companies) as between themselves. Among civil law branches are such as Family law, Property law, Civil Rights law, Media law, Education law, Consumer protection law, Environmental law, etc.

The main areas of civil law with which a business may be concerned are:

Law of contract. This is concerned with the enforcement of promises, usually in the form of agreements. Such agreements may be formal written agreements or informal oral agreements, or even agreements to be implied from conduct.

Law of tort. A tort is a civil wrong, other than a breach of contract or a breach of trust (both of which are civil wrongs but are not torts), which may be remedied by an action for damages. Unlike contract the duty which is breached in committing a tort is fixed by the law, whereas the duty which is breached in committing a breach of contract is a duty undertaken voluntarily as a result of a promise to the other party. There are quite a number of individual torts: e.g. negligence, nuisance, trespass (to person, to goods, or to land), defamation, and deceit.

Commercial law. This law comprises the rules relating to specific types of contract such as sale of goods, supply of services, hire purchase, insurance, consumer credit, carriage of goods, etc.

Company law. This is the field of law concerning companies, corporations, partnerships and other business organizations. It also specifies the relationship between a business entity and outside parties who commercially interact with it.

Labour law. This can be divided into two parts. First, there is employment law – the part which regulates individual employment rights, for example, the rules relating to unfair dismissal, the right to redundancy payment, equal pay, etc. Secondly, there is industrial law – the part which relates to collective activity, for example, the law relating to industrial action, admission to and expulsion from trade unions, etc. Some employment law, particularly in the area of health and safety, is criminal law.

Land law. The main areas which concern businesses are the law relating to the relationship of landlord and tenant and planning law.

It is extremely important to understand that a particular course of conduct can give rise to consequences in both civil law and criminal law at the same time. For example, the crime of murder (and most other criminal offences involving physical injury) will at the same time involve the torts (that is, the civil wrongs) of assault and battery. The crime of causing criminal damage will amount to the tort of trespass to goods. The crime of causing death by dangerous driving will amount to the tort of negligence.