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Legal liability is the legal bound obligation to pay debts. In law, a person is legally liable when they are financially and legally responsible for something. Legal liability concerns both civil law and criminal law. Legal liability can arise from various areas of law, such as contracts, tort judgments or settlements, taxes, or fines given by government agencies.


What is Legal Liability?

Simply put, legal liability is being legally responsible for your actions.

Legal liability permeates every aspect of the law. This includes civil, commercial, contract, and criminal law. If someone is injured because of something for which you are responsible, you are liable.

How is liability determined?
There are different theories of liability that are exercised is various forms of the law.


This refers to the failure of someone to exercise proper or ordinary care. This can be a failure to do something or to do something that should not have been done. Personal injury claims are often based on negligence. This could be from a reckless driver causing an accident with injuries or a careless manufacturer who produces and delivers unsafe goods that malfunction and cause harm.

Breach of warranty

If a product fails to live up to the terms of its warranty, a consumer has the right to sue for liability. A computer that’s guaranteed for a year, but fails to perform after six months would be an example of a breach of warranty.


This refers to advertising or promotion that gives consumers false security about the safety of a product by concealing potential hazards of its use. A space heater that gets too hot if left on too long could become a fire hazard, for example.

Strict tort liability

This is a legal term that extends responsibility of a manufacturer to all people who might be injured by a product, regardless of fault.

Are there protections against liability?
In commercial law, there is something known as a limited liability cover form. It’s basically an insurance policy that protects an individual owner against liability claims against his or her company. When you see the initials L.L.C. after a company name, this is it – a limited liability corporation. Limited liability separates an owner from the business. Only funds used in the business are subject to liability claims. Liability insurance usually only covers liability claims from torts. It does not apply to contractual obligations.

Am I entitled to a settlement?
If you have been injured in any way, either by a specific person or defective product, you are certainly entitled to sue for compensation.

Call us for a consultation
At Vinson Law, we have a renowned staff of professional and experienced attorneys at your disposal.

Give us a call at 888-513-8593 to discuss your options. Put our experts in legal liability claims to work for you.

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