Odger's English Common Law

40G PRIVATE RIGHTS OF ACTION.
though in a sense wrongful, is not deemed in law a tort,
although it is a tort for one man maliciously to induce
another to break his contract with a third person. A tort, as
a rule, is " a wrong independent of contract." *
This Book and the next will be devoted to the considera-
tion of the nature and classification of torts and contracts
respectively, and of the rights of action arising from them.
But first we must discuss in detail the precise meaning of
the legal phrase, a "right of action."
To constitute a right of action there must, as a general rule,
be a "concurrence of loss and injury," 2 or, in the technical
language of lawyers, there must be both injuria and damnum.
The word injuria denotes a wrong recognised as such by
the law. The word damnum means " damage," not neces-
sarily pecuniary or perceptible to others, but appreciable and
capable in legal contemplation of being estimated. It follows
^directly from these definitions that damnum sine injuria—
-damage unaccompanied by legal wrong—is not actionable at
Jaw, though injuria sine damno often is.
Damnum sine Injuria.
It is not every substantial wrong, still less an imaginary
grievance, which affords a right of action for redress. Nor
is it true that for every kind of damage for loss occasioned
by the act of another a remedy is given by the law. It
not infrequently happens that damage, palpable and undeni-
able though it be, is without redress. Where there is a
binding contract between the parties, any breach of it is in
itself an injuria for which an action will lie without proof
of damage. But when we turn to the consideration of torts,
instances can readily be found of apparent injuries for which
the law gives no redress although they occasion loss.
Thus no action lies for the loss inflicted on a schoolmaster by the estab-
lishment of a rival school adjacent to his own, or on a millowner by the
1 This is the phrase employed in
,1852 (15 & 16 Vict c. 76).
Schedule B of the Common Law Procedure Act,
2 Per Lord Campbell, L. C, in Lynch v. Knight and wife (1861), 9 H. L. Cas. at
p. 559,