"What's a tort? It's a wrong that a court is prepared to recognize, usually in the form of ordering the transfer of money ("damages") from the wrongdoer to the wronged. The court is usually alerted to wrong by the filing of a lawsuit: anyone can walk through the courthouse doors and, subject to the limits explored in civil procedure, call someone else (or, if a company, some-thing) to account. We'll discuss the sources that courts turn to in order to answer such questions. Rarely, in tort cases, are those sources the ones laypeople expect: statutes passed by legislatures. Without statutes to guide them, what are courts left with?"--