Intentional Torts Flashcards
Battery
An intentional bodily contact that is offensive or harmful
Battery
Intent
Snyder v. Turk
Ohio Court of Appeals 1993
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.
Battery
Intent - Substantial Certainty
Garratt v. Dailey
Supreme Court of Washington 1955
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.
Single Intent
Under single intent, the plaintiff just has to prove the contact was intentional, not that the harm or offense was
Dual Intent
Under dual intent, the plaintiff has to prove the defendant intended the touching to be offensive or harmful and that it actually was
Transferred Intent
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
Dual Intent
White v. Muniz
Colorado Supreme Court 2000
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.
Battery
Direct Bodily Contact
The actor phyisically touches another’s body with his own
Battery
Indirect Bodily Contact
The actor touches something that is intimately connected with another’s body, like hitting a food tray someone is carrying.
Battery
Remote Bodily Contact
The actor causes an object to touch another’s body.
Battery
Harm
Harmful is inflicting physical pain or illness.
Battery
Offence
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.”
Battery
Offence
Cohen v. Smith
Illinios Appellate Court 1995
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.
Possible Damages for Battery
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
Extended Liability Principal
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.
Assault
Elements
An action intended to cause reasonable apprehension by victim of an imminent battery and the action does so.
Assault
Cullison v. Medley
Indiana Supreme Court 1991
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.
Assault
Apprehension
A reasonable awareness of imminent touching that would be a battery if completed and that the actor will do so
Assault
Imminent
The battery will occur without significant delay, not sometime in the future.
Conditional Assault
Conditional assault occurs when the actor gives the person a choice between following an order or suffering a battery
False Imprisonment
Intentionally confining the victim to a physical area with the victim’s awareness or harm
False Imprisonment
McCann v. Wal-mart Stores, Inc.
United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit 2000
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.
False Imprisonment
Reasonable Means to Escape
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.
Trespass to Land
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
Trespass to Land
Intent
Trepassing can be intentionally entering the land or causing an object to enter the land
Trespass to Land
Damages
The tortfeasor will always be liable for nominal damages, plus possible compensatory damages for harm
Trespass to Land
Extended Liability
If a trespasser causes harm by accident as a result of his trespass, he is liable for it
Conversion of Chattels
Conversion of chattels occurs when the actor intends to exercise substantial dominion over the victim’s chattel and does so
Conversion of Chattels
Factors to Impose Liability Suggested by ALI
- 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
Trespass to Chattels
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
Section 1983 Claims - Statutory Torts
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
Section 1983 Claims - Statutory Torts
Qualified Immunity
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.
Section 1983 Claims - Statutory Torts
Main Ways to Raise a 1983 Claim
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
