Intentional Torts Flashcards
What are the elements of an intentional tort?
- the defendant acted
- with the intent
- to cause
- a legally recognizable harm
What is the requirement for a defendant’s action?
The action must be volitional
What is intent?
The purpose to do something or knowledge with substantial certainty that the result will occur
What is required for causation in intentional torts?
It is the actual cause of the harm or is a substantial factor in causing the harm
What are the theories of actual causation for intentional torts?
- but for
- concert of action
- substantial factor
- alternative liability
What are the elements of battery?
- the defendant acted
- with intent
- to cause harmful or offensive contact
- and harmful or offensive contact actually occurred
What are the elements of assault?
- the defendant acted
- with intent
- to cause reasonable apprehension of imminent harmful or offensive contact
What are the elements of trespass to land?
- the defendant intentionally
- enters the land of another or causes a third party to do so
- or remains on the land
- or fails to remove from the land a thing which he has a duty to remove
What are the elements of trespass to chattels?
- the defendant acts
- to intentionally dispossess another of a chattel
- or uses or intermeddles with the chattel in possession of another
What are the elements of conversion?
- the defendant intentionally
- exercises dominion or control over a chattel
- which so seriously interferes with the right of another to control it
- that the defendant may justly be required to pay the plaintiff the full value of the chattel
What are the elements of false imprisonment?
- the defendant acts with the intent to confine another to a limited area
- the defendant causes that confinement or fails to release the other from confinement
- the other is aware of the confinement or suffers harm as a result of the confinement
- the other does not consent to the confinement
- the other has no reasonable means of escape
What is transferred intent?
A defendant intends to commit a tort against one person but instead commits:
1. the same tort against a different person
2. a different tort against the same person
3. a different tort against a different person
Which intentional torts does transferred intent apply to?
BAFTT: battery, assault, false imprisonment, trespass to land, trespass to chattels
What are the defenses to intentional torts?
- consent
- self defense / defense of others
- defense of property
- necessity
What are the types of consent?
Explicit and implicit
What is explicit consent?
Written or verbal communication of consent
What is implicit consent?
When consent is indicated through conduct or behavior
What conditions are required for consent?
- the person must have the capacity to consent
- consent must be voluntary
- consent must not be the product of fraud
- consent is limited to the exact, or substantially the same, conduct that was consented to
- consent can only be given for lawful conduct
When is self defense applicable?
- when the actor uses force against another
- to defend themselves or a third party
- against an unprivileged use of force
- if they reasonably believe the force is necessary
- and proportionate to the force the other is inflicting or about to inflict
When is defense of property applicable?
- when the actor reasonably believes that the unprivileged intrusion can be prevented or terminated only by the use of force
- and the actor has first requested that the other desist and the other has disregarded the request
- or the actor reasonably believes the request will be useless or substantial harm will be done before the request can be made
When is the defense of private necessity applicable?
An actor has the qualified privilege to commit an act that would otherwise be trespass to land, chattels, or conversion if:
- the actor reasonably believes
- it to be reasonable and necessary
- to protect their own interests or the interests of a small group of others
- from serious harm
- unless the actor knows that the person for whose benefit they are acting is unwilling for them do so
When is the defense of public necessity applicable?
- if the act is reasonably believed
- to be necessary
- to prevent or avoid public disaster
