How Can Contract Actions and Tort Actions Be Distinguished ?

In Bash v. Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania, 411 Pa. Super. 347, 601 A.2d 825 (Pa. Super. 1992), the court explained that tort actions lie for breaches of duties imposed by law as a matter of social policy, while contract actions lie only for breaches of duties imposed by mutual agreements between particular parties. The court further reasoned that to permit a promisee to sue his promisor in tort for breaches of contract inter se would erode the usual rules of contractual recovery and inject confusion into our well-settled forms of actions. See also Yocca v. Pittsburgh Steelers Sports, Inc., 806 A.2d 936 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2002), rev'd on other grounds, 578 Pa. 479, 854 A.2d 425 (2004), and Redevelopment Authority of Cambria County v. International Insurance Company, 454 Pa. Super. 374, 685 A.2d 581 (Pa. Super. 1996), appeal denied, 548 Pa. 649, 695 A.2d 787 (1997), (relying on Bash to distinguish contract and tort actions).