Deck 1 Flashcards
Thin-skull rul
Have to pay for all damages, regardless of forseeability.
Vosburg v Putney (light kick aggravates prior injury, D had no intention to cause harm, school setting)
Apply think-skull rule. Intent unlawful because act unlawful in school setting and class had been called to attention.
Knight v Jewett (flag football)
Intent to contact necessary element of battery. This is play. Implicit consent of some contact in flag football (can be overcome by expressed statement such as “I’ll stop playing if you keep playing rough.”)
White v University of Idaho (Piano teacher case)
Test: Was it offensive to a reasonable sense of personal dignity? Not enough to think is it offensive.
Is it wrong? How easy would it have been to do something else?
Battery
Intent to contact (or create contact). Offensive to a reasonable person. If not reasonable, ask first.
Dual intent (battery)
Need to intend contact and intend the harm/offense (car bump case).
Polmatier v Russ (insanity defense)
There is intent to act even if insane. No intent to act would be something like a seziure or a reflex.
This rule encourages family members and guardians to deter. People could pretend to be insane. Worse not to compensate then forcing compensation if there is sufficient money to compensate.
Laidlaw v Sage (sage moves clerk in front of person with bomb, clerk injured, sues for battery)
Act not voluntary because it was necessary to self-preserve (pressing danger). First law of nature is to self-preserve.
Keel v Hainline (D at whom eraser thrown appeals for liability for hitting and injuring non-participant)
Still guilty. Transferred transferred intent. Liabiliy is imposed for a secondary role in the events that produced P’s injury.
Three types of transfered intent
1) bad aim, 2) mistaken identity, 3) tort to tort (Manning, trying to commit assault but committing battery will transfer intent from assault to battery).
Can Heckler in Manning be sued (ball hit someone else when aimed at him)?
Depends on wrongfulness. Liable if intent or gave substantial assistance or encouragement (ex. here’s a tire iron, go beat them up).
What if someone unusually sensitive?
You have to know and the act has to be highly offensive. Also, avoiding can’t be unduly burdensome or imposing liability would violate public policy.
2019 version: Primary purpose has to be that it will be highly offensive.
Is serving non-kosher food to someone who keeps kosher battery, where intent is to save time not to be offensive?
Battery under 2017 because it isn’t unduly burdensome, but not battery under 2019 because purpose is to save time, not to offend.
State of mind required for intent
D has to intend to achieve a specific result when D either 1) has a purpose to accomplish that result or 2) lacks such a purpose but knows to a substantial certainty that D’s actions will bring about the result.
Mohr v Williams (thought surgery on right ear only, surgery on left ear, damage. Was consent necessary?)
Consent must be either expressly or impliedly given before a surgeon may have the right to operate. Patient is the final arbiter. Can’t violate bodily integrity.
Grabowski v Quigley (surgery performed by a different doctor than anticipated, battery?)
Yes. But, in some cases where consent is given to the hospital instead of a specific doctor, it is ok for a different doctor than expected to perform the surgery.
Brzoska v Olson (HIV dentist, no patients contract HIV, Battery? Claimed mental anguish)
Not battery. Offensive character is based on a reasonableness standard. No exposure to HIV. Can’t substitute fragile sensibilities of a particular patient for objective norms governing the rendering of medical/dental care.
Who is the reasonable person?
Not normal or average person. They are pretty grate person. For example, they have not of HIV is transferred and don’t fear the doctor. They are not afraid of walking on glass path over the Grand Canyon even if average person would be afraid.
Cohen v Smith (religious belief forbids being seen unclothed by men other than husband. Male nurse saw and touched her with her clothes of durring procedure. Result)?
P won. Individuals have the right to refuse medical treatment even if such a refusal would result in an increased likelihood of the individual’s death.
Consent
Willingness in fact for conduct to occur. If words or conduct are reasonably understood by another to be intended as consent, they constitute apparent consent and are as effective as consent in fact.
Neal v Neal, sued husband for having sex with her while having an affair. Would not have consented otherwise.
Not battery.
Friendly boxing match. Knows other person is unaware that other person has defective heart. Causes heart attack. Liability?
Yes.
Intimate familiarities for $20. Counterfeit. Battery? Same facts, but blood transfusion for counterfeit. Battery?
No. Yes.
Is smoke a contact?
When malicious we’ll say yes. When not malicious we’ll say no (substantial certainty case).
Bumps and jostles
There is some implicit consent to bumps and jostles in life, especially in crowded places.
Battery definition
Actor’s affirmative conduct causes such a contact; and the contact causes bodily harm to the other or is offensive. Anything that causes harm can be battery unless consent. Bumps and jostles are implied consent.
McNeil majority rule
Consent to an unlawful act is no defense to a claim of battery. Person who wins has to pay under this rule.
Minority Hart rule
Consent to unlawful act is a defense to a claim of battery. Detriment to loser because they can’t seek damages. Deters loser. But if both people think they will win, we want the rule that deters the winner.
Battery elements
1) Intent to contact, 2) contact occurs. 3) No consent (this could be a defense and not an element).
What does intent to contact consist of?
Either purpose or substantial certainty. Intent to harm or offend is not required (for a majority of states). Actions must be volitional (not merely reflexes, or the result of pressing danger). Drunkenness and insanity do not nullify intent. Intent can be transferred from intended to actual victim and from one intentional tort to another.
Gray areas of intent
Transferring intent when original intent to contact was not wrongful (police officer bullet proof vest training).
Does contact with a perosn’s clothes count as contact?
Yes.
Does victim need to know they have been contacted for battery?
No.
Indirect contact for battery (ex. causing someone to use a filtyh towel)
Counts.
Gray areas of contact
Laser/smoke contact. Car as an extension of self. In gray cases look to other features of the case, such as the degree of wrongfulness, degree of harm, to perosns or personal dignity, broad policy concerns, etc.
Exceptions to consent
Emergency, you consent to an unspecified substitute.
Does fraud/nondisclosure vitiate consent?
Sometimes. For exmaple, permanent ink (not knowing it is permanent), punch in chest (heart defect case). Others do not: Trait of doctors, fraud as to collateral matter where no harm occurs.
Unsettled cases: STD disclosures sometimes.
In fraud cases whether or not harm is caused matters (ex. blood transfusion vs intimate familiarities).
When should we not use transferred intent?
When it leads to a worse result. It’s a patch doctrime aimed at making the law more just when we don’t like the result.
Consent to trespass and fraud.
Sometimes fraud negates consent and sometimes doesn’t.
Fraud invalidates: Ex. Lying about checking water meter to get into house.
Fraud doesn’t invaldiate: Food critic saying they are ordinary customer to get into restaurant.
Consider: Don’t want to be distrubed, privacy violated, stuff stole, want to control what happens in local, intamacy/privacy, peace.
Examples of substantial certainty and lack of it
Substantially certain: Spiking cafeteria food, throwing a bomb into a crows.
Not substantially certain: High speed car chase.
Peggy v Gray, loos hunting dogs often chase foxes onto P’s property sometimes inciting the cattle to stampede and break down the fences that enclose them
Repeated nature makes it at least close to sbustantial certainty. IF this always happens it becomes a trespass. This is wider than substantial certainty.
Reciprocal vs non-reciprocal risks
MIght treat them differently due to a hypothetical bargain.
Trespass intent
have to intentionally enter land. Don’t need to intend to damage the land.
Intent required is intent to go to the place you go to.
Trespass even if you think land you are on is land you’re allowed to be on. Mistake is not an excuse.
Heigh and trespass?
Usually not trespass if over a certain height and not capable of invading privacy.
What do we care about for trespass
Don’t care about harm, violation of privacy, distrubance, etc when a clear physical invasion on ground level.
Trespass and transferred intent?
No transferred intent from trespass to assault/battery and vice versa.
Katkow, spring gun case.
Preventing trespass is not an excuse for battery. Life and bodily protection of a person is more important than property. Notice is not sufficient.
Kershaw v McKown, dog attacking P’s goat shot.
Liability if dog worth greatly more than goat.
Can consider relative value of animals. Can shoot unless animal you are shooting is far more valuable.
property isn’t about effciency, it’s about protecting property. Actual instructions protect more property even though they are less efficient.
