Chapter 6: Intentional Torts

Question 1

What is a tort?

Answer 1

A tort is a civil wrong that is not a breach of a contract

Question 2

What are the four types of tort wrongfulness?

Answer 2

1. Intentional tort
2. Recklessness
3. Negligence
4. Strict liability

Question 3

What in an intentional tort?

Answer 3

The desire to cause certain consequences or the substantial certainty that those consequences will result from one’s behavior

Question 4

What is recklessness?

Answer 4

A conscious indifference to a known and substantial risk of harm created by one’s behavior

Question 5

What is negligence?

Answer 5

A failure to use reasonable care, with harm to another party occuring as a result

Question 6

What is strict liability?

Answer 6

Liability without fault or, more precisely, liability irrespective of fault

Question 7

What are the basics of a tort?

Answer 7

• Standard of proof that plaintiff must satisfy in a tort case is preponderance of the evidence standard
• A plaintiff who wins a tort case usually recovers compensatory damages for the farm suffered as a result of defendant’s wrongful act
• Particularly bad behavior may result in an award of punitive damages

Question 8

What is battery?

Answer 8

The intentional and harmful or offensive touching of another without his consent

Question 9

What is assault?

Answer 9

An intentional attempt or offer to cause a harmful or offensive contact with another person, if that attempt or offer causes a reasonable apprehension of imminent battery in the other person’s mind

Question 10

What is intentional infliction of emotional distress?

Answer 10

• Most courts allow recovery for emotional distress even if no other tort is proven
• All courts require the wrongdoer’s conduct to be outrageous before liability is imposed
• Most courts apply reasonable person test

Question 11

What is false imprisonment?

Answer 11

The intentional confinement of another person for an appreciable time (a few minutes is enough) without his consent

Question 12

What is defamation?

Answer 12

Defamation is an

• unprivileged
• publication of
• false and defamatory
• statements concerning another person

Libel refers to written defamation

Slander refers to oral defamation

Question 13

What is invasion of privacy?

Answer 13

Invasion of privacy refers to four distinct torts

1. Intrusion on Solitude or Seclusion
2. Public Disclosure of Private Facts
3. False Light Publicity
4. Commercial Appropriation of Name or Likeness

Question 14

What is misuse of legal proceedings?

Answer 14

Three intentional torts protect people against the harm that can result from wrongfully instituted legal proceedings

1. Malicious prosecution: Wrongful institution of criminal proceedings
2. Wrongful use of civil proceedings: Wrongfully instituted civil suits
3. Abuse of process: Imposes liability on those who initiate legal proceedings, whether criminal or civil, for a primary purpose other than the one for which the proceedings were designed

Question 15

What is deceit (fraud)?

Answer 15

The formal name for the tort claim available to victims of knowing or intentional misrepresentations

• Requires proof of false statement of material fact, knowingly or recklessly made by defendant with intent to induce reliance by the plaintiff, along with actual, justifiable, and detrimental reliance on plaintiff’s past

Question 16

What is trespass to land?

Answer 16

Any unauthorized or unprivileged intentional intrusion upon another’s real property, including physically entering a plaintiff’s land, causing another person or object to do so, remaining on the land after one’s right to remain has ceased, and invading airspace above land or subsurface below

Question 17

What is a private nuisance?

Answer 17

• Involves some interference with plaintiff’s use and enjoyment of the land
• Unlike trespass to land, nuisance does not require a physical invasion of the property
• Includes odors, noise, smoke, light, vibration
• Liability requires the interference to be intentional, substantial and unreasonable

Question 18

What is conversion?

Answer 18

Defendant’s intentional exercise of dominion or control over plaintiff’s personal property without plaintiff’s consent through

• Acquisition
• Removal
• Transfer to another
• Withholding possession
• Destruction or alteration
• Use