A child slips on a wet floor.
A driver runs a red light.
A product explodes in someone’s hands.
There is injury.
There is blame.
And beneath the courtroom
and the codes,
before the lawsuits
and settlements—
there is something older,
quieter,
deeply human.
An intuition.
That harm deserves repair.
That carelessness carries consequence.
That someone should make this right.
This is the heartbeat of tort law.
But more than statutes and procedures,
it is shaped by the intuitions we all carry
about responsibility, fault, and fairness.
The Moral Weight Behind the Law
Long before we consult a judge,
we feel the injustice.
- She shouldn’t have to pay for his mistake.
- He knew the risk. Why should the company be liable?
- They ignored the warning signs. They must be held accountable.
Tort law is the system.
But intuition is the spark.
It’s how we make sense
of suffering caused by others.
It’s how we separate
accident from neglect,
bad luck from bad faith.
And though it may not always align with precedent,
it’s what gives the law its soul.
Why We Feel Strongly
Tort law touches something close.
It’s not abstract.
It’s not distant.
It’s the everyday:
a neighbor’s dog bite,
a cracked sidewalk,
a doctor’s decision.
We imagine ourselves in the story.
The injured.
The accused.
The bystander.
And from that place of empathy,
we form judgments—
not always accurate,
but always real.
We want fairness.
We want balance.
We want to know that harm
will not be ignored.
When Intuition Clashes With Doctrine
But intuition is not law.
It doesn’t always account for nuance.
Sometimes we overestimate fault
because the outcome was tragic.
Sometimes we demand justice
even when responsibility is shared.
Sometimes we conflate pain
with wrongdoing.
And the law must sort through
what emotion cannot.
It must ask:
- Was there a duty?
- Was it breached?
- Was harm foreseeable?
But still, beneath these tests,
live our instincts—
guiding, questioning, stirring.
The Humanity Within Systems
We build legal systems
to manage complexity.
To resolve disputes
when our feelings conflict.
But we return to intuition
to remind us why
we built them in the first place.
To protect.
To repair.
To create a world
where harm is not ignored,
and healing is not denied.
And sometimes,
our intuitions about tort law
are not only emotional—
they’re ethical.
A reminder that justice
is not just about resolution.
It’s about recognition.
A Closing Reflection
If you find yourself reading a story—
of injury,
of negligence,
of blame—
pause.
Ask:
- What am I feeling, and why?
- Do I want punishment, or accountability?
- What would justice look like—not just legally,
but morally?
Because tort law may write the rules.
But our shared human sense
writes the reasons.
And both are needed
to keep the scales balanced.
And in the end, our intuitions about tort law remind us
that justice begins not in the courtroom,
but in the heart.
In the quiet moment
when we see someone harmed
and something inside us says,
This isn’t right. Someone should answer for this.
And when we build systems
that honor both reason and feeling—
that listen to law,
but do not silence the soul—
we create not just justice on paper,
but justice that breathes.
Justice that sees.
Justice that heals.