In contrast, criminal law seeks to punish those that has done wrongs against the community. For example, a person who decides to take the life of someone else commits murder. The community by way of its government has a duty to protect itself from being murdered. The result is Criminal Law which is enforceable by the State and initiated by the Police. Therefore criminal law is said to protect the community and punishes those that breaks the law with a fine, imprisonment or community sentences. Whereas, civil law seeks to compensate party who has suffered wrong.
Civil law covers many areas of everyday daily life, most notable are domestic relations law like divorces and child custody law, probate like wills and estates, employment like agency and working hours laws, and personal injury law. Under pining those laws are Tort and Contract Law.
A high level definition of tort law is that it deals with wrongs or injuries inflicted on one party by another and usually the parties involved are unknown to each other until something occurs which results in the tort action. Contracts on the other hand deals with the roles, relationships and obligations of parties that are engaged in a formal agreement.
Under civil law an example of tort is acts of carelessness, or failure to act which result in injury or loss to another person. An example is a driver who fails to drive properly and as a result of that failure injures a pedestrian. This incident can give rise to negligence which is the failure to take reasonable care to avoid injury or loss to another person. However in order to prove a negligent claim, it must be