Intentional Torts Flashcards
Designed to make us not suck at Torts.
Battery
A prima facie case involves an act by D, with intent to inflict a harmful or offensive touching, and causation.
Assault (Touching of the Mind)
A prima facie case involves an act by D, with intent to cause apprehension of an immediate harmful or offensive touching, apprehension, and causation. the “act” must be a volitional movement of the body. Words alone are ordinarily insufficient except where surrounding circumstances force P to rely on mere words. (ex. “Don’t turn around or I’ll shoot!”)
False Imprisonment
A prima facie case involves an act by D, with intent to confine P to a specific area, a confinement, and causation.
Trespass to Chattels
A prima facie case involves P in possession of a chattel or entitled thereto, an act by D with intent to invade a chattel interest, an invasion of such interest, and causation.
Trespass to Property
A prima facie case involves P in possession of land or entitled thereto, an act by D with intent to invade the land, an intrusion upon the land, and causation.
Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress (IIED)
A prima facie case involves extreme and outrageous conduct by D, with intent to cause severe emotional distress, causation, and severe emotional distress. Words alone may suffice, but simple insults are not actionable. The courts will consider the totality of circumstances.
Conversion
A prima facie case involves P in possession or entitled thereto, an act by D with intent to substantially invade a chattel interest, a substantial invasion of such interest, and causation. D’s act must be a volitional movement that results in a substantial interference with another’s possession of her chattels.
Words Alone Doctrine
“Words alone do not make the actor liable for assault unless together with other acts or circumstances they put the other in reasonable apprehension of imminent contact.”
Substantial Cause Test
The principle that causation exists when the defendant’s conduct is an important or significant contributor to the plaintiff’s injuries.
Apprehension
P must be placed in a reasonable apprehension of an imminent harmful or offensive touching of P’s (and not someone else’s) person and must be subjectively aware of the threat at the time thereof. P’s apprehension must be reasonable. Fear is not required; apparent ability to inflict a touching suffices.
Imminent
Imminent does not mean immediate, in the sense of instantaneous contact. It means, rather, that there will be no significant delay. Thus, words may negate the threat (e.g., where threat is of future harm). However, a conditional threat may be an assault where D is not privileged to make the threat (e.g., “Take back what you said or I’ll kill you”).
Transferred Intent
The Doctrine of Transferred Intent states that the tort of battery or of assault and a battery may be committed, although the person struck or hit by the defendant is not the one who he intended to strike or hit. A second form of Transferred Intent occurs when a defendant intends to commit one tort and ends up committing another.
Single Intent vs. Dual Intent for battery
Single intent requires that someone intended to touch another. Dual intent requires that they intended to harm or offend by touching.
Eggshell Rule
The principle that a defendant is liable for a plaintiff’s unforeseeable and uncommon reactions to the defendant’s negligent or intentional act. • Under this rule, for example, if one person negligently scrapes another who turns out to be a hemophiliac, the negligent defendant is liable for the full extent of the plaintiff’s injuries even though the harm to another plaintiff would have been minor. — Also termed eggshell-plaintiff rule; thin-skull rule; special-sensitivity rule; old-soldier’s rule.
Reckless, willful, and wanton conduct
A course of action which shows actual or deliberate intent to harm or which, if the course of action is not intentional, shows an utter indifference to or conscious disregard for a person’s own safety or the safety or property of others. It is a hybrid between acts considered negligent and behavior found to be intentionally tortious. When a person’s conduct creates a known risk that can be reduced by relatively modest precautions, that conduct should be considered reckless rather than simply negligent.
Cause of Action
A claim, that can be pursued in court, against the person who committed the tort
What is a tort?
Torts are wrongs recognized by law as grounds for a lawsuit.
Strict Liability
Liability that does not depend on actual negligence or intent to harm, but that is based on the breach of an absolute duty to make something safe. Strict liability most often applies either to ultrahazardous activities or in products-liability cases. — Also termed absolute liability; liability without fault.
