Rule Statements

Question 1

What is a tort?

Answer 1

the law governing civil liability for non-contractual harm done to a plaintiff’s person, property, emotions, reputation, privacy, or financial interests

Question 2

What are the elements for battery?

Answer 2

A person is liable for battery if:
1. They intend to cause a contact with the plaintiff’s person of such contact;
2. Their affirmative conduct causes such contact; and
3. The contact causes harm or is objectively offensive to the plaintiff

Question 3

What are the elements for negligence?

Answer 3

1. The defendant owed a duty of care;
2. The defendant breached that duty;
3. The defendant’s breach caused the plaintiff’s harm;
4. The plaintiff’s harm was within the scope of liability of defendant’s breach (an inquiry traditionally known as “proximate cause”); and
5. The plaintiff suffered a legally compensable harm

Question 4

What is strict liability?

Answer 4

Courts assign liability whether or not the defendant’s conduct was wrongful

Question 5

What is negligence and recklessness?

Answer 5

Liability stems from conduct that unreasonably, but accidentally, caused harm (failure to exercise due care)

Question 6

What is an intentional tort?

Answer 6

Liability turns on whether the defendant intended the wrong or harm; acting for the conscious object to seek a particular result

Question 7

What is a battery?

Answer 7

An intentional infliction of a harmful bodily contact on someone else

Question 8

What is transferred intent?

Answer 8

Exists when a defendant intends to commit an intentional tort against one person but instead commits the tort against a different person

Question 9

What is transferred intent between torts?

Answer 9

Applies whenever both the tort intended and the resulting harm fall within the scope of the old action of trespass–where involving both a direct and immediate application of force to the person or to tangible property

Question 10

Under battery, what makes a contact offensive? (Restatement § 3)

Answer 10

1. The contact is offensive to a reasonable sense of personal dignity; or
2. The actor knows that the contact is highly offensive to the other’s sense of personal dignity, and the actor contacts the other with the primary purpose that the contact will be highly offensive

Question 10

What are the elements for assault?

Answer 10

1. The defendant intends to cause the plaintiff to anticipate an imminent, and harmful or offensive, contact with the plaintiff’s person; and
2. The plaintiff was placed in imminent apprehension as a result of the defendant’s conduct

Question 11

What is an assault?

Answer 11

An assault is a tort that is available when a person is put in imminent apprehension of harm or fear of contact; placed in apprehension of physical contact is harm (I de S et ux v. W de S)

Question 11

What is false imprisonment?

Answer 11

The direct restraint of one person of the physical liberty of another without adequate legal justification

Question 12

What are the elements of false imprisonment?

Answer 12

A defendant is subject to liability to a plaintiff for false imprisonment if:
1. The defendant intends to confine the plaintiff within a limited area;
2. The defendant’s conduct caused the plaintiff’s confinement; and
3. The plaintiff is conscious of that confinement

• In minority jurisdictions, recovery is allowed if the plaintiff was conscious of the confinement or was harmed by it

Question 13

What are the elements for Intentional Infliction of Emotion Distress (IIED)?

Answer 13

A defendant is liable for IIED if they:
1. intended to cause extreme and severe emotional distress upon plaintiff, or knew with substantial certainty that the plaintiff would suffer severe emotional distress
2. With conduct that is extreme and outrageous; and
3. the plaintiff suffered severe and extreme emotional distress

• In minority jurisdictions, CA included, the conduct must be directed at the plaintiff with the plaintiff present

Question 14

What are the elements of trespass to land?

Answer 14

1. The defendant commits an intentional act; and
2. That causes the physical invasion onto the land of another

Question 15

What are the elements of trespass to chattels?

Answer 15

1. The intent to act that interferes with another’s property
2. The act interferes with the plaintiff’s right of possession in the personal property/chattel

Question 16

What are the elements of conversion?

Answer 16

1. Intentional exercise of dominion or control over a chattel
2. Which so seriously interferes with the right of another to control it that the action may justly be required to pay the other the full value of the chattel

Question 17

What is actual consent?

Answer 17

A plaintiff consents to the tortious conduct of another if the plaintiff is willing for that conduct to occur. Willingness may be express or inferred from the facts and plaintiff’s conduct

Question 18

What is revocation of actual consent?

Answer 18

When plaintiff clearly communicates a revocation of actual consent to the plaintiff, the consent is generally no longer legally effective

Question 19

What is implied consent (presumed consent)?

Answer 19

A defendant is not liable for tortious intentional conduct if:
1. Under prevailing norms, the defendant is justified in engaging in the conduct in the absence of the plaintiff’s actual or apparent consent; and
2. The defendant had no reason to believe that the plaintiff would not have actually consented to the conduct if the defendant had requested the plaintiff’s consent

Question 20

What are the elements for self defense?

Answer 20

A defendant has a privilege to use force against the plaintiff for the purpose of defending themselves against the plaintiff’s unprivileged use of force if:
1. The defendant reasonably believes that force is immediately necessary to protect himself against the force, even though there is in fact no necessity
2. The amount of force is or reasonably appears to be necessary for protection against the threatened force