Civil liability is important because not all wrongs can be reached through criminal liability. Some things we don't think merit criminal punishment. Other things simply aren't going to be crimes because crimes are defined more precisely. And maybe prosecutors simply don't want to bring a criminal charge in a particular case for one reason or another. Now at the same time, contract law provides a more limited remedy. So, anybody can bring a contract action but if they do, the damages that they get are typically just a refund of whatever it is that they paid. or costs they were sort of put out for, by the breach of the contract. And sometimes that's simply inadequate. So, for example, if I come to work on your house and I end up blowing up your house, Right? Merely giving you a refund for the, payment you made to me to, say, paint the room in your house, that, that's not going to be anywhere near enough to compensate you for the damage that you've suffered. You need a tort remedy for that. So, civil liability is there in situations where a contract remedy is inadequate and where a criminal kind of sanction is unavailable. And in both of those realms, or when both of those things don't apply, then civil liability is there to serve the goals of the tort system, compensating people, deterring wrongful behavior, and ensuring a kind of fairness in administration of justice. The most common use of torts as an alternative to criminal law comes where you're going after an organization for its wrongful behavior. You can't put a company in jail. You can put individual company officials in jail, but the company usually will go on with other officials, and you might think that that's not enough of a response to an organization or company that's engaged in wrongdoing. So torts enables you to sanction the organization as a whole by imposing damages on that organization to the point that it could cause them to go bankrupt if they have engaged in enough wrongdoing and are unable to pay what has been determined the, you know, as the added compensation that's required. So that's a kind of principle way in which torts can serve a purpose that criminal law cannot. Criminal law is very much focused on individuals. Tort law, of course, could apply to individuals, but it can also apply to organizations or groups. Now, it's also worth pointing out that tort law and criminal law have a different burden of proof. So, a basic difference between the two is that in criminal law you have to prove something beyond a reasonable doubt. And in tort law, you typically only need a preponderance of the evidence to make someone liable. So, in some situations, you might simply say that a burden of proof difference means that there can be a remedy for torts where there cannot be for criminal law. And the difference in those burdens of proof is basically stemming from the fact that in one case we're putting people in prison and taking away their liberty and in the other we're not. We're only sanctioning them with money. So it seems appropriate to have a lower standard of proof when only money is involved. So civil liability is there as a backstop because any person can bring a tort claim. and try to get a remedy and the remedy they can get is often greater than what criminal law would provide or the sanction that would be imposed on the wrongdoer is something that wouldn't be available in criminal law.