injuria

Injuria is a Latin legal term used to describe a wrongful act that infringes upon the rights of another. It denotes a category of private wrong, or delict, in which the focus is the act itself as an unlawful interference with a person’s rights, rather than solely the financial loss that may ensue. The term has historical prominence in Roman law and the broader ius commune, and it continues to appear in discussions of civil law traditions as a concept underlying tort-like liability.

In Roman law, injuria encompassed injuries to person, reputation, or dignitas, including insults, contumely, and other affronts that violated a person’s honor or status. The action for injuria, known as actio injuriarum, protected not only material interests but also intangible rights such as reputation and social standing. Remedies could include damages or other restitutions; the precise form of relief varied across jurisdictions and over time.

A key distinction in injuria doctrine is between injuria and damnum. Damnum refers to actual loss or damage, while injuria is the wrongful act itself. Some legal systems recognized injuria sine damno—the right to bring a claim for an unlawful act even in the absence of measurable damage, provided the rights were infringed.

In modern civil law, injuria or its equivalents often survive as a framework for delict or tort liability that includes personal rights and reputation. In some languages, terms such as ingiuria or injurias similarly denote insults or defamatory acts. In English-language usage, injuria is largely historical or scholarly, with the contemporary focus typically on tort or defamation as the relevant legal categories.