Intentional Torts Flashcards
Battery Rule
Battery occurs when an actor intends to make a harmful or offensive contact with another and harmful or offensive contact occurs
Assault Rule
Assault occurs when the actor intends to cause harmful or offensive contact or an imminent apprehension of such a contact and the person is put in such imminent apprehension
False Imprisonment Rule
False imprisonment occurs when an actor intends to confine another in an enclosed space, resulting in total involuntary confinement of another & the other is aware of confinement
Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress Rule
There is intentional infliction of emotional distress when the actor by extreme and outrageous conduct intentionally or recklessly causes severe emotional distress to another
Trespass to Land Rule
Trespass to land occurs when an actor intends to enter or cause an object to enter another’s land without permission, resulting in the unauthorized entry of the other’s land
Trespass to Chattels Rule
Trespass to chattels occurs when the actor intends to physically interfere with, dispossess, or destroy another’s chattel, such interference, dispossession, or destruction occurs, and the other is deprived of the use of his chattel
Privilege as a Defense
Privilege is when a tort does occur, but it does not matter because it was within the scope because the actor is privileged (prima facie case is met, but defendant has a right to the conduct)
Consent as a Defense
Consent totally negates a tort from occurring, a tort cannot happen if you say you are okay with something
Insanity as a Defense
Insanity is generally not a defense to tortious conduct, but where an insane person, by his act, does intentional damage to the person or property of another, he is liable for damage in the same circumstances in which a normal person would be liable. In order to be liable, the insane person must have been capable of entertaining the same intent and must have entertained it in fact
Defense of Property
one may use reasonable force to prevent the commission of a tort against his property
o If an actor enters without force, the possessor must request that the actor leaves before using actual, reasonable force
You have to request him to leave and if he does not, then you can use reasonable force to eject him
o If one comes in with force, the possessor does not need to ask him to leave but is allowed to lay hands on his immediately
It is returning violence with comparable violation
o A possessor may not wound or cause serious bodily harm to another in defense of property
Recapture of Chattels
you have a privilege to use reasonable force to recapture your chattels or property taken unlawfully
o Has to be reasonable force, cannot wound or use serious force merely in defense of property
o No violence is necessary or required unless the person used violence
o The dispossession must be by force or fraud, not something you voluntarily gave up
o MISTAKE: your mistake eliminates your privilege
If you run after someone who you think has stolen something and they have not done anything wrong, you lose the privilege of using reasonable force to recapture the chattel
Once you are out in public you are upsetting the status quo of the streets, you look like you are putting people in danger, so you better be right
o REQUIREMENT OF HOT PURSUIT: only a valid defense under hot pursuit; you have to immediately go after you notice
Private Necessity
a person has the right to enter another’s land without permission in order to avoid imminent serious harm to his life or his property by naturally occurring causes or human causes
o a party who damages property of others while acting with private necessity must compensate the property owner for the resulting damages
General Rule of Extent of Damages for Intentional Torts
you are liable for what results from the action, not just what is foreseeable
Battery Intent
Battery intent is acting with the purpose of producing the consequence or knowing with substantial certainty that a consequence will occur. Under single intent an actor must simply intend to make a contact, regardless of whether that contact was harmful or offensive. Under dual intent jurisdiction an actor must intend to make a contact and intend for that contact to be harmful or offensive.
Battery Conduct
Battery conduct is any voluntary act that leads to a contact to a person, or object closely identified with that person.
Battery Result
Battery result is harmful or offensive contact to a person, or object so closely identified with that person. Harmful contact is physical injury, pain or disfigurement. Offensive contact is contact that would be offensive to a reasonable person with ordinary sensibilities.
Assault Intent
Assault intent is acting with the purpose to produce a consequence or knowing with substantial certainty that that consequence will result. Assault intent is typically the intent to cause a harmful or offensive contact or the intent to cause imminent apprehension.
Assault Conduct
Assault conduct is any offer or attempt to make a contact.
Assault Result
Assault result is imminent apprehension of a harmful or offensive contact.
False Imprisonment Intent
False imprisonment intent is intent to confine.
False Imprisonment Conduct
False imprisonment conduct is any act that directly or indirectly leads to total confinement.
False Imprisonment Result
False imprisonment result is total and involuntary confinement of another, and the person is aware of confinement.
IIED intent
IIED intent is intentionally or recklessly causing emotional distress or knowing with substantial certainty that emotional distress will result. IIED transferred intent is to a family member and they must witness it. IIED reckless intent is blatant disregard to a high risk of injury.
IIED conduct
IIED conduct is so extreme and outrageous of the nature that no reasonable person would expect you to endure such a thing.
IIED result
IIED result is the plaintiff suffers severe emotional distress
Trespass to land intent
Trespass to land intent is the intent to act while not necessarily knowing that it is someone’s land in particular.
Trespass to land conduct
Trespass to land conduct is any voluntary act that causes another actor to unlawfully enter another’s land or any voluntary act that interferes with another’s property rights.
Trespass to land result
Trespass to land result is an unauthorized entry onto another’s land.
Trespass to chattels intent
Trespass to chattels intent is acting to intentionally interfere with, dispossess or destroy another’s chattel with the purpose to cause trespass or know with substantial certainty that trespass will result.
Trespass to chattels conduct
a voluntary act that interferes with, dispossesses, or destroys another’s chattel
Even if no physical damages, there can be trespass if unpermitted use is for an extended time
If the chattel is destroyed, the tort of conversion results and the person has to pay for the value of the chattel
Trespass to Chattels Result
chattel is dispossessed or impaired, or the possessor is deprived of the use of the chattel for a substantial time
Trespass Mistake
intent to enter land which happens to be someone else’s property makes you liable
Plaintiff who mistakenly believes that a land is public, voluntarily enters that land, but the land is actually private property is liable for trespass to land
• You still have the intent to enter onto that specific land
Trespass Accident
If you accidentally enter onto someone’s property (ex. icy road) you aren’t liable for trespass.
• You did not have the intent to enter onto that specific land (pure accidents are not trespass to land)
SHOPKEEPER’S EXCEPTION
If a shopkeeper suspects someone is shoplifting and detains that person to determine whether they are, no false imprisonment; has to be reasonable suspicion, reasonable circumstances, and reasonable manner
CONFINEMENT BY OMISSION
failure to release someone when they have an obligation to be freed
Express Consent
can be expressed when the plaintiff has expressly shown a willingness to submit to the defendant’s conduct
PLEASANTRY
o any friendly or casual touching indecent to everyday life
IMPLIED CONSENT
o could occur in the case of major internal operations and in sports settings
EMERGENCY RULE: medical treatment will be lawful when an emergency requires acting to preserve the health or life of the patient
• The plaintiff is not capable of consent and consent cannot be obtained from someone who has the authority to consent for the plaintiff
SILENCE AND ACTIONS WITHIN THE SCOPE OF THE SITUATION: if everyone else is gesturing a certain way for a certain reason, & you make the same gesture, consent is implied
• if custom or social norms would lead a reasonable person to believe that the plaintiff had given consent
SPORTS: if the conduct is such that is within the normal practices of the game
Apparent Consent
in which a reasonable person would infer consent from the plaintiff’s conduct
Words, actions, or inactions may reasonably manifest consent
Silence may manifest consent when a reasonable person would have spoken up
Consent to Criminal Conduct
you cannot consent to a violation of criminal law EXCEPTION: "Where it is a crime to inflict a particular invasion of an interest of personality upon a particular class of persons, irrespective of their assent, and the policy of the law is primarily to protect the interests of such a class of persons from their inability to appreciate the consequences of such an invasion, and it is not solely to protect the interests of the public, the assent of such a person to such an invasion is not a consent thereto" • Protects classes if they cannot appreciate the consequences
4 different tests to determine when a risk is foreseeable/affirmative duty is owed
o Specific Harm- only liable if aware of specific imminent harm
o Prior Similar Incidence- notice of repeated criminal assaults on the same premises; foreseeability is established by incidents on or near the premises
o Totality of Circumstances Test- most commonly used test; takes nature, condition, location of land, and other relevant circumstances into consideration
o Balancing Test- balance foreseeability of harm against the burden of imposing a duty to protect against the criminal act; foreseeability used as a synonym to probability; similar to the hand formula (used in breach)
Hand Formula
the main method courts use to determine whether a risk is unreasonable
• Elements of the Hand Formula:
o Burden of Precaution (B)- can be determined by looking at the steps the actor must take to avoid the harm and how burdensome those precautions would be
Measures the value of the interest to be sacrificed to avoid the harm
• Consider: the costs of avoidance, alternatives and their feasibility, inconvenience of avoiding, etc.
• Defendant does not need to take all possible precautions- only reasonable ones to make the activity safer and lower the risk of harm
Social Utility of Taking a Risk (B2)- social utility of non-avoidance
• Posner believed that social utility should be added to the Hand Formula as B1 + B2
o The social utility of saving a life is much too important to exclude from the calculus of risk
o Probability of the Risk (P)- can be determined by looking at how likely/foreseeable it is that injury occurs
If P is minute, there will be no breach even if a harm occurs
o Gravity/Severity of the Harm (L)- can be determined by examining how serious the consequences might be
Measures the likely harm, and the potential extent thereof, that would follow from the injury-causing event if it occurred
What a reasonable person would foresee as the likely harm- the likely harm, NOT the actual harm that occurred
If P is low, this may not matter much
• Reasonable Risk- when the burden of precaution is higher than the probability of risk times the gravity of harm, the risk is not unreasonable
• Unreasonable Risk- defendant’s conduct is unreasonable if the burden of avoiding harm (B) is less than the probability of the harm (P) multiplied by the likely severity/gravity of the harm (L)
o B < P*L
Res Ipsa Loquitor- “the thing speaks for itself”
o a doctrine of law that one is presumed to be negligent if he had exclusive control of whatever caused the injury even though there is no specific evidence of an act of negligence, and without negligence the accident would not have happened.
o RULE: when there is a lack of evidence, a jury can infer negligence from the very fact that the accident or injury occurred
a type of circumstantial evidence used to establish proof of defendant’s negligence
you sue for negligence and use RIL as evidence to prove it
used to aid the plaintiff in proving breach of duty
o a doctrine of proof of defendant’s negligence not a theory of liability itself
establishes a presumption of evidence and it is up to the defendant to prove that it was not negligent
o A Defendant charged with a nondelegable duty of care to maintain an instrumentality in a safe condition effectively has exclusive control over it for the purposes of applying RIL
Joint Liability
where there are multiple defendants whose conduct caused the plaintiff’s indivisible harm each may be liable for plaintiff’s entire damage award
plaintiff may recover her whole award from any one defendant or part from each
plaintiff may not recover their whole damage award more than once; she cannot recover her whole damage award two or more times
Several Liability
where there are multiple defendants whose negligent conduct caused plaintiff’s injury each defendant would be liable to plaintiff for only a proportionate share of damages
Apportionment of damages among defendants may be done on the basis of causation where the harm to plaintiff is capable of division (i.e. where each defendant has caused only a separable part of the plaintiff’s injuries)
o If there are 2 human, or 1 human & 1 natural cause of harm: the negligent human known should be held liable
Intervening Cause
an independent act that occurs after the defendant’s negligent conduct but before the plaintiff’s injury (not a preexisting condition)
Superseding Cause
If the intervening cause breaks the chain of causation between the defendant’s negligent conduct and the plaintiff’s injury, it is a superseding cause
