<P> The main remedy against tortious loss is compensation in damages or money . In a limited range of cases, tort law will tolerate self - help, such as reasonable force to expel a trespasser . This is a defense against the tort of battery . Further, in the case of a continuing tort, or even where harm is merely threatened, the courts will sometimes grant an injunction, such as in the English case Miller v Jackson (1977). This means a command, for something other than money by the court, such as restraining the continuance or threat of harm . Usually injunctions will not impose positive obligations on tortfeasors, but some Australian jurisdictions can make an order for specific performance to ensure that the defendant carries out their legal obligations, especially in relation to nuisance matters . </P> <P> Scholars and lawyers have identified conflicting aims for the law of tort, to some extent reflected in the different types of damages awarded by the courts: compensatory, aggravated, and punitive . British scholar Glanville Williams notes four possible bases on which different torts rested: appeasement, justice, deterrence and compensation . </P> <P> From the late 1950s a group of legally oriented economists and economically oriented lawyers known as law and economics scholars emphasized incentives and deterrence, and identified the aim of tort as being the efficient distribution of risk . Ronald Coase, a principal proponent, argued in The Problem of Social Cost (1960) that the aim of tort should be to reflect as closely as possible liability where transaction costs should be minimized . </P> <P> Since the mid-to - late 20th century, calls for reform of tort law have come from various perspectives . Some calls for reform stress the difficulties encountered by potential claimants . For example, because not all people who have accidents can find solvent defendants from which to recover damages in the courts, P.S. Atiyah has called the situation a "damages lottery". Consequently, in New Zealand, the government in the 1960s established a no - fault system of state compensation for accidents . Similar proposals have been the subject of Command Papers in the UK and much academic debate . </P>

Tortfeasor is the term for a person who commits a tort