In the common law, civil law refers to the area of law involving relations between private individuals. It also is used to describe all law outside of the criminal law context.

Distinguished from criminal law

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Unlike criminal law, civil law involves relationships among persons and organizations. Civil law, in this sense, is usually referring to the use of civil law courts (as opposed to criminal courts) often as a means to engage in disputes involving accidents, torts (such as negligence, libel and other intentional torts), contract disputes, the probate of wills, and trusts, and any other private matters that involve private parties. Non-adherance to civil law is considered to be a tort or breach of contract, rather than a crime. Depending upon the regional government, this field of law includes commercial law and some kinds of administrative law, though sometimes administrative law judges adjudicate penal law violations such as parking tickets and other minor offenses.

Contractual law enables one party (the plaintiff), who wishes to sue for breach of contract, to collect money from a defendant. In other cases, civil courts may impose other conditions, such as forbidding someone to do an act (e.g. an injunction) or formally changing someone's legal status (e.g. divorce or change of name). Civil lawsuits sometimes occur as a result of criminal action, and such a lawsuit can be successful even when the defendant was found not guilty under criminal law. Some civil lawsuits, such as under the civil provisions of the U.S. federal RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) statutes, enable private action for money when someone has suffered due to the violation of certain predicate crimes under federal law (such as wire and mail fraud and other specifically enumerated federal offenses).

Zivilrecht

Civil law