A wrong (from
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
– 'crooked')
is an act that is illegal or
immoral.
Legal wrongs are usually quite clearly defined in the
law of a
state and/or
jurisdiction. They can be divided into
civil wrong
Civil may refer to:
*Civic virtue, or civility
*Civil action, or lawsuit
* Civil affairs
*Civil and political rights
* Civil disobedience
*Civil engineering
* Civil (journalism), a platform for independent journalism
*Civilian, someone not a mem ...
s and
crimes (or ''criminal offenses'') in
common law countries,
while
civil law countries tend to have some additional categories, such as
contraventions
In many civil law countries (e.g.: France, Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal, Italy, Brazil) a contravention is a non-criminal offense, similar to an infraction or civil penalty in common law countries.
France
Contravention is, in French law, an ac ...
.
Moral wrong is an underlying concept for legal wrong. Some
moral
A moral (from Latin ''morālis'') is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. A ...
wrongs are punishable by law, for example,
rape or
murder
Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...
.
Other moral wrongs have nothing to do with law, but are related to unethical behaviours. On the other hand, some legal wrongs, such as many types of parking offences, could hardly be classified as moral wrongs.
Legal wrong
A violation of law is any act (or, less commonly, failure to act) that fails to abide by existing
law. Violations generally include both
crimes and
civil wrong
Civil may refer to:
*Civic virtue, or civility
*Civil action, or lawsuit
* Civil affairs
*Civil and political rights
* Civil disobedience
*Civil engineering
* Civil (journalism), a platform for independent journalism
*Civilian, someone not a mem ...
s. Some acts, such as
fraud
In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compens ...
, can violate both civil and criminal laws. In law, a wrong can be a legal
injury
An injury is any physiological damage to living tissue caused by immediate physical stress. An injury can occur intentionally or unintentionally and may be caused by blunt trauma, penetrating trauma, burning, toxic exposure, asphyxiation, o ...
, which is any damage resulting from a violation of a
legal right. A legal wrong can also imply the state of being contrary to the principles of justice or law. It means that something is contrary to conscience or morality and results in treating others unjustly. If the loss caused by a wrong is minor enough, there is no compensation, which principle is known as ''
de minimis non curat lex
''De minimis'' is a Latin expression meaning "pertaining to minimal things", normally in the terms ''de minimis non curat praetor'' ("The praetor does not concern himself with trifles") or ''de minimis non curat lex'' ("The law does not concern i ...
''. Otherwise, damages apply.
The law of England recognised the concept of a "wrong" before it recognised the distinction between
civil wrong
Civil may refer to:
*Civic virtue, or civility
*Civil action, or lawsuit
* Civil affairs
*Civil and political rights
* Civil disobedience
*Civil engineering
* Civil (journalism), a platform for independent journalism
*Civilian, someone not a mem ...
s (governed by
civil law) and
crimes (defined by
criminal law
Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and moral welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law i ...
), which distinction was developed during the thirteenth century.
Civil law violations usually lead to
civil penalties like
fine
Fine may refer to:
Characters
* Sylvia Fine (''The Nanny''), Fran's mother on ''The Nanny''
* Officer Fine, a character in ''Tales from the Crypt'', played by Vincent Spano
Legal terms
* Fine (penalty), money to be paid as punishment for an offe ...
s, criminal offenses to more severe
punishment
Punishment, commonly, is the imposition of an undesirable or unpleasant outcome upon a group or individual, meted out by an authority—in contexts ranging from child discipline to criminal law—as a response and deterrent to a particular acti ...
s.
The severity of the punishment should reflect the severity of the violation (
retributive justice
Retributive justice is a theory of punishment that when an offender breaks the law, justice requires that they suffer in return, and that the response to a crime is proportional to the offence. As opposed to revenge, retribution—and thus retr ...
). In realistic situations and for minor violations, however,
altruistic punishment was shown not 'to fit the crime'.
This subdivision is similar to the distinction between
misdemeanour
A misdemeanor (American English, spelled misdemeanour elsewhere) is any "lesser" criminal act in some common law legal systems. Misdemeanors are generally punished less severely than more serious felonies, but theoretically more so than adm ...
s, and
felonies.
Other examples of violations of law include:
*
Infraction
A summary offence or petty offence is a violation in some common law jurisdictions that can be proceeded against summarily, without the right to a jury trial and/or indictment (required for an indictable offence).
Canada
In Canada, summary offen ...
, in United States law, minor or
petty offense
A summary offence or petty offence is a violation in some common law jurisdictions that can be proceeded against summarily, without the right to a jury trial and/or indictment (required for an indictable offence).
Canada
In Canada, summary offenc ...
s that do not require
jury trial. In common usage, "violations" are treated as synonymous with infraction.
*
Willful violation
In the North American legal system and in US Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations, willful violation or willful non-compliance is a violation of workplace rules and policies that occurs either deliberately or as a result of neg ...
, in U.S. law an act with intentional disregard for a regulation, statute and policy
*
Infringement, various violations of laws or rights, usually used in the context of intellectual property
** e.g.
copyright violation
*
Breach of contract
Breach of contract is a legal cause of action and a type of civil wrong, in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other party ...
*
Probation violation
Probation in criminal law is a period of supervision over an offender, ordered by the court often in lieu of incarceration.
In some jurisdictions, the term ''probation'' applies only to community sentences (alternatives to incarceration), such ...
* against
traffic rules
**
Moving violation, any violation of law committed by a driver while the vehicle is in motion
**
Parking violation
A parking violation is the act of parking a motor vehicle in a restricted place or in an unauthorized manner. It is against the law virtually everywhere to park a vehicle in the middle of a highway or road; parking on one or both sides of a road ...
, parking a motor vehicle in a restricted place or an unauthorized manner
See also
*
Error
*
Evil
*
Goodness and value theory
In ethics and the social sciences, value theory involves various approaches that examine how, why, and to what degree humans value things and whether the object or subject of valuing is a person, idea, object, or anything else. Within philosophy, ...
*
Guilt (law)
*
Illegalism
*
Justice
*
Moral rights
*
Natural and legal rights
*
Rights
References
Bibliography
*Willis, Hugh. ''Principles of the Law of Damages''. The Keefe-Davidson Co.: St. Paul, 1910.
External links
{{Set index article
Criminal law
Concepts in ethics
Civil law (common law)
Legal doctrines and principles