Torts--Intentional Torts Flashcards
Tort
a. A civil wrong committed independent of a contract that becomes the basis of a civil law suit or claim
Tort-Battery
i. Battery occurs when the defendant’s acts intentionally cause harmful or offensive contact with the victim’s person.
Battery–Act
i. Act that results in a harmful or offensive contact to the Plaintiff’s person
Battery–Intent
i. Intent (desire or knowledge of substantial certainty (“ktsc”)) to cause a harmful or offensive contact. (Consider also whether transferred intent might apply.
Battery–Causation
i. The act must be a substantial factor in causing the harmful or offensive contact.
ii. The defendant’s voluntary action must be the direct or indirect legal cause of the harmful or offensive contact. However, defendant need not herself actually contact the victim
Battery–Damages
Nominal or Actual
Assault
i. Assault occurs when the defendant’s acts intentionally cause the victim’s reasonable apprehension of immediate harmful or offensive contact
Assault–Act
i. Act that results in an apprehension of an imminent harmful or offensive contact to the Plaintiff’s person
Apprehension
a. The victim must perceive that harmful or offensive contact is about to happen to him.
b. The Restatement and several court decisions distinguish between “fear” and “apprehension.” The requisite apprehension of imminent contact need not produce fear in the victim.
Assault–Intent
i. Intent (desire or ktsc) to cause an apprehension of an imminent harmful or offensive contact
Assault–causation
i. The act must be a substantial factor in causing the apprehension of an imminent harmful or offensive contact
Assault–Damages
Nominal or actual
False Imprisonment
i. The defendant unlawfully acts to intentionally cause confinement or restraint of the victim within a bounded area. Accidental confinement is not included and must be addressed under negligence or strict liability
False Imprisonment–Act
: An act that confines or restrains Plaintiff against Plaintiff’s will within a bounded area
False Imprisonment–Restraint
- Restraint must be complete
- Methods of restraint
a. Physical barriers
b. Force or threat of immediate force
c. Omission where D has a legal duty to act
d. Improper assertion of legal authority
False Imprisonment–Against P’s Will
- P must be aware of confinement
2. Consider evidence of P’s consent
False Imprisonment–Intent
i. Intent (desire or ktsc) to cause confinement or restraint of Plaintiff
False Imprisonment–Causation
i. Act must be a substantial factor in causing confinement or restraint.
False Imprisonment–Damages
Nominal
IIED
i. Intentional infliction of mental distress exists when the defendant, by extreme and outrageous conduct, intentionally or recklessly causes the victim severe mental distress
IIED–ACT
- Extreme and outrageous is an act viewed as beyond all possible bound of decency and to be regard as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized society, but that mere petty annoyances, threats, insults and inconveniences do not suffice to establish liability.
IIED–Intent
i. Once acting knowingly to the degree of substantial certainty that harm would result or acting purposely, with the desire to bring about the consequences of his act
IIED–Recklessness
- One whose acts are calculated with the subjective actual awareness of the possibility of risk of emotional distress resulting from this conduct, yet consciously disregards that risk anyway.
IIED–Causation
i. Requires that the defendant’s actions were a substantial factor in bringing about the plaintiff’s harm and that the harm caused is severe emotional distress