 Tort is a branch of private law. It focuses on interpersonal wrongdoing primarily between private persons. Unlike the law of contract, tort obligations are not normally entered into voluntarily; unlike the criminal law, the state is not necessarily a party to a tort action. Private persons can often contract around the rights and obligations of tort law; those rights and obligations provide the background against which other private arrangements can be made. Prominent examples of torts include negligent injury, battery, deceit, and defamation. In each case, the existence of the legal right that has been violated does not depend on any prior act of the injured party. Instead, everyone has rights against these types of conduct on the part of others. Tort law engages with two of the most fundamental questions of morality and social life: how people are permitted to treat each other, and whose problem it is when things go wrong.