Intentional Torts

Question 1

Battery

Answer 1

An intentional bodily contact that is offensive or harmful

Question 2

Battery

Intent

Snyder v. Turk

Ohio Court of Appeals 1993

Answer 2

A person is liable for battery when he acts intending to cause a offensive contact and the contact results. Conduct is offensive if a reasonable person would perceive it to be. Defendant doctor grabbed plaintiff nurse’s face and pulled it to the surgical site.

Question 3

Battery

Intent - Substantial Certainty

Garratt v. Dailey

Supreme Court of Washington 1955

Answer 3

A person can be held liable for battery if she acted intentionally, with knowledge to a substantial certainty that her actions would cause a harmful or offensive contact to another person. A little boy pulled a chair away from plaintiff when she was about to sit down and she got hurt.

Question 4

Single Intent

Answer 4

Under single intent, the plaintiff just has to prove the contact was intentional, not that the harm or offense was

Question 5

Dual Intent

Answer 5

Under dual intent, the plaintiff has to prove the defendant intended the touching to be offensive or harmful and that it actually was

Question 6

Transferred Intent

Answer 6

The actor intends to commit a tort against one person but actually does it to someone else, or an actor intends to commit one tort and commits a different tort

Question 7

Dual Intent

White v. Muniz

Colorado Supreme Court 2000

Answer 7

In a dual intent jurisdiction, a tortfeasor must both intentionally contact another person and intend that the contact be harmful or offensive to be liable for battery. Defendant put her grandmother in a home and the grandmother had dementia. The grandmother hit an aide while she was changing her diaper.

Question 8

Battery

Direct Bodily Contact

Answer 8

The actor phyisically touches another’s body with his own

Question 9

Battery

Indirect Bodily Contact

Answer 9

The actor touches something that is intimately connected with another’s body, like hitting a food tray someone is carrying.

Question 10

Battery

Remote Bodily Contact

Answer 10

The actor causes an object to touch another’s body.

Question 11

Battery

Harm

Answer 11

Harmful is inflicting physical pain or illness.

Question 12

Battery

Offence

Answer 12

The Restatement Third of Torts provides that a contact is offensive if either: “(a) the contact offends a reasonable sense of personal dignity; or (b) the contact is highly offensive to the other’s unusually sensitive sense of personal dignity, and the actor knows that the contact will be highly offensive to the other.”

Question 13

Battery

Offence

Cohen v. Smith

Illinios Appellate Court 1995

Answer 13

It is offensive for someone to touch another, even when the contact wouldn’t normally be seen as offensive, if the actor knows it’s offensive to that particular person. Plaintiff told her doctor her religion prevented her from letting men see her naked, and the doctor let a male nurse see her during her c-section.

Question 14

Possible Damages for Battery

Answer 14

Nominal – even if the harm or offence is slight the plaintiff might be entitled to some money

Compensatory – if the contact caused medical expense, lost pay, etc, those are recoverable if the plaintiff provides proof

Pain and suffering and emotionally distress – determined by what is fair and reasonable

Punitive – meant to punish

Question 15

Extended Liability Principal

Answer 15

The defendant who commits an intentional tort, at least if it involves conscious wrongdoing, is liable for all damages caused, not merely those intended or foreseeable.

Question 16

Assault

Elements

Answer 16

An action intended to cause reasonable apprehension by victim of an imminent battery and the action does so.

Question 17

Assault

Cullison v. Medley

Indiana Supreme Court 1991

Answer 17

Assault is acting with the intent to cause a battery or the apprehension of an imminent battery. The apprehension is determined by whether a reasonable person would be apprehensive. A plaintiff may sue for assault when only claiming emotional damages. After Plaintiff invited a minor to his house, her family threatened him at his house and later at a restaurant.

Question 18

Assault

Apprehension

Answer 18

A reasonable awareness of imminent touching that would be a battery if completed and that the actor will do so

Question 19

Assault

Imminent

Answer 19

The battery will occur without significant delay, not sometime in the future.

Question 20

Conditional Assault

Answer 20

Conditional assault occurs when the actor gives the person a choice between following an order or suffering a battery

Question 21

False Imprisonment

Answer 21

Intentionally confining the victim to a physical area with the victim’s awareness or harm

Question 22

False Imprisonment

McCann v. Wal-mart Stores, Inc.

United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit 2000

Answer 22

Physical restraint is not necessary for confinement. Defendants kept a family in an office, saying the boys shop lifted, told them they were calling the police, and wouldn’t let one of the boys go to the bathroom. After an hour, defendant employees discovered they were wrong.

Question 23

False Imprisonment

Reasonable Means to Escape

Answer 23

If the actor confines someone but there’s a reasonable means for the victm to escape without gettting hurt and the victim knows about it, it’s not false imprisonment.

Question 24

Trespass to Land

Answer 24

Trespess occurs when

• The victim has ownership or a possessory interest in the land,
• the actor intends to enter or is substantially certain to enter the land and
• does so, interfering with the victim’s right to exclusive possession and use of the land.

It’s also trespass if the owner gave consent for the trespasser to enter the land and then asks the trespasser to leave and he refuses to

Question 25

Trespass to Land

Intent

Answer 25

Trepassing can be intentionally entering the land or causing an object to enter the land

Question 26

Trespass to Land

Damages

Answer 26

The tortfeasor will always be liable for nominal damages, plus possible compensatory damages for harm

Question 27

Trespass to Land

Extended Liability

Answer 27

If a trespasser causes harm by accident as a result of his trespass, he is liable for it

Question 28

Conversion of Chattels

Answer 28

Conversion of chattels occurs when the actor intends to exercise substantial dominion over the victim’s chattel and does so

Question 29

Conversion of Chattels

Factors to Impose Liability Suggested by ALI

Answer 29

• Extent and duration of the control
• The defendant’s intent to assert a right to the property
• The defendant’s good faith
• The harm done
• Expense and inconvenience caused
• Remedies - damages or return of chattel

Question 30

Trespass to Chattels

Answer 30

Trespass to chattels occurs when the actor intends or is substantially certain to physically interfere with the owner’s use and enjoyment of his property and the actor does so

Question 31

Section 1983 Claims - Statutory Torts

Answer 31

Section 1983 claims occur when (1) the defendant was acting under the color of law and (2) the defendant deprived the plaintiff of federal rights

Question 32

Section 1983 Claims - Statutory Torts

Qualified Immunity

Answer 32

The doctrine of qualified immunity protects government officials from liability for civil damages unless their conduct violates clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.

Question 33

Section 1983 Claims - Statutory Torts

Main Ways to Raise a 1983 Claim

Answer 33

Fourteenth Amendment – plaintiff must prove the defendant’s act “shocks the conscience of the court.”

Fourth Amendment - whether the defendant’s search or seizure was unreasonable, usually meaning it was done without a warrant or probable cause

Eighth Amendment – turns on the court’s interpretation of cruel and unusual