A civil wrong or wrong is a cause of action under civil law. Types include tort, breach of contract and breach of trust.
Something that amounts to a civil wrong is wrongful. A wrong involves the violation of a right because wrong and right are contrasting terms. An 1860 legal ruling stated that: "It is essential to an action in tort that the act complained of should under the circumstances be legally wrongful as regards the party complaining; that is, it must prejudicially affect him in some legal right".[1]
The law that relates to civil wrongs is part of the branch of the law that is called the civil law. A civil wrong can be followed by civil proceedings. It is a misnomer to describe a civil wrong as a "civil offence". The law of England recognised the concept of a wrong before it recognised the distinction between civil wrongs and crimes in the 13th century.