Torts--Intentional Torts Flashcards

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1
Q

Tort

A

a. A civil wrong committed independent of a contract that becomes the basis of a civil law suit or claim

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2
Q

Tort-Battery

A

i. Battery occurs when the defendant’s acts intentionally cause harmful or offensive contact with the victim’s person.

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3
Q

Battery–Act

A

i. Act that results in a harmful or offensive contact to the Plaintiff’s person

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4
Q

Battery–Intent

A

i. Intent (desire or knowledge of substantial certainty (“ktsc”)) to cause a harmful or offensive contact. (Consider also whether transferred intent might apply.

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5
Q

Battery–Causation

A

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

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6
Q

Battery–Damages

A

Nominal or Actual

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7
Q

Assault

A

i. Assault occurs when the defendant’s acts intentionally cause the victim’s reasonable apprehension of immediate harmful or offensive contact

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8
Q

Assault–Act

A

i. Act that results in an apprehension of an imminent harmful or offensive contact to the Plaintiff’s person

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9
Q

Apprehension

A

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.

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10
Q

Assault–Intent

A

i. Intent (desire or ktsc) to cause an apprehension of an imminent harmful or offensive contact

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11
Q

Assault–causation

A

i. The act must be a substantial factor in causing the apprehension of an imminent harmful or offensive contact

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12
Q

Assault–Damages

A

Nominal or actual

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13
Q

False Imprisonment

A

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

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14
Q

False Imprisonment–Act

A

: An act that confines or restrains Plaintiff against Plaintiff’s will within a bounded area

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15
Q

False Imprisonment–Restraint

A
  1. Restraint must be complete
  2. 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
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16
Q

False Imprisonment–Against P’s Will

A
  1. P must be aware of confinement

2. Consider evidence of P’s consent

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17
Q

False Imprisonment–Intent

A

i. Intent (desire or ktsc) to cause confinement or restraint of Plaintiff

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18
Q

False Imprisonment–Causation

A

i. Act must be a substantial factor in causing confinement or restraint.

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19
Q

False Imprisonment–Damages

A

Nominal

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20
Q

IIED

A

i. Intentional infliction of mental distress exists when the defendant, by extreme and outrageous conduct, intentionally or recklessly causes the victim severe mental distress

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21
Q

IIED–ACT

A
  1. 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.
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22
Q

IIED–Intent

A

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

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23
Q

IIED–Recklessness

A
  1. 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.
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24
Q

IIED–Causation

A

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

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25
Q

IIED–Damages

A

Must be actual

26
Q

IIED–Defenses

A

First Amendment

27
Q

Self-Defense Rule

A

Defendant is privileged to commit an intentional tort if Defendant uses only the amount of force that reasonably appears necessary to repel imminent harm

28
Q

Self-Defense–harm must be imminent

A

i. The threat must be immediate and a preemptive strike is not justified under common law rules.
ii. Permitting preemptive strikes would accelerate violence in instances where the use of force could otherwise be avoided

29
Q

Self-Defense–force

A

Reasonable amount of force

30
Q

Self-Defense–Reasonable mistake

A

Reasonable mistake will not negate the defendant’s right to use self-defense

31
Q

Self-Defense-Maj Retreat

A
  1. Majority common law position does not require retreat, assuming the threatened individual has the legal right to be present or to proceed.
32
Q

Self-Defense-Minority Retreat

A
  1. Requires retreat where serious bodily injury or death would otherwise be required in self-defense. The minority position would not, however, require retreat from the victim’s dwelling.
33
Q

Self-Def–Initial Aggressor

A

i. Initial aggressor may be given the right to self-defense under certain circumstances where the initial aggressor withdraws from the confrontation, and communicates this withdrawal to the other party, he regains the right to self-defense.

34
Q

Defense of Others

A

Defendant is privileged to commit an intentional tort if Defendant uses only the amount of force that reasonably appears necessary to repel imminent harm to a third person.

35
Q

Defense of Property–Rule

A

D is privileged to commit an intentional tort if D uses only the amount of force that reasonably appears necessary to protect D’s real or personal property. The owner must first make a verbal demand that the intruder stop, unless it reasonably appears that violence or harm will occur immediately, or that the request to stop will be useless.

36
Q

Recovery of Property-Rule

A

D is privileged to use reasonable force to recover property when in hot pursuit of wrongdoer

37
Q

Recovery of Property-Fresh Pursuit

A

i. An individual may use reasonable force to recover property when in “hot pursuit” of the wrongdoer

38
Q

Trespass to Land

A

i. One is subject to liability to another for trespass, irrespective of whether he thereby causes harm to nay legally protected interest of the other, if he intentionally:
1. Enters land in the possession of the other, or causes a thing or a third person to do so, or
2. remains on the land, or
3. fails to remove from the land a thing which he is under a duty to remove.

39
Q

Trespass to Chattel

A

i. Trespass to chattel is the intentional interference with the right of possession of personal property. The defendant’s acts must intentionally damage the chattel, deprive the possessor of its use for a substantial period of time, or totally dispossess the chattel from the victim

40
Q

Conversion

A

i. An intentional exercise of dominion and control over a chattel which so seriously interferes with the right of another to control it that the actor may justly be required to pay the other the full value of the chattel.

41
Q

Negligence-Duty

A

i. A legal obligation to conform to a particular standard of care toward another. (Foreseeable Plaintiff?)
ii. Failure to act
iii. Misfeasance/nonfeasance
iv. Standard of care

42
Q

Negligence-Breach

A

i. Failure to conform to the standard of reasonable care. (RPP)
ii. Standard of care
iii. Physical & mental disabilities

43
Q

Negligence-Causation

A

i. Defendant’s breach must be:
1. the factual; and
2. the proximate (legal) cause (Foreseeable Harm?) to Plaintiff

44
Q

Negligence-Damages

A

i. Defendant’s breach must be:
1. the factual; and
2. the proximate (legal) cause (Foreseeable Harm?) to Plaintiff

45
Q

Egg Shell Rule

A

a. The defendant is liable even if the victim suffers physical injury far more severe (e.g., heart attack) than the ordinary person would be anticipated to have suffered from the accident.

46
Q

Transferred intent

A

i. Battery
ii. Assault
iii. False imprisonment
iv. Trespass to land
v. Trespass to chattel

47
Q

Reasonable Person Standard

A

a. The reasonable person standard is an objective standard that compares the defendant’s conduct to the external standard of a reasonable person. Thus, the law imposes on each person of society an obligation to conform to the objective reasonableness standard

48
Q

Necessity

A

a. Necessity is a defense which allows the defendant to interfere with the property interests of an innocent party in order to avoid a greater injury. The defendant is justified in her behavior because the action minimizes the overall loss. The defense is divided into two categories: public and private necessity

49
Q

Public Necessity

A
  1. Public necessity exists when the defendant appropriates or injures a private property interest to protect the community. Public necessity is a complete defense. Surocco v. Geary
50
Q

Private Necessity

A
  1. Private necessity exists when the individual appropriates or injures a private property interest to protect a private interest valued greater than the appropriated or injured property.
  2. Private necessity is an incomplete defense: the defendant is privileged to interfere with another’s property, but is liable for the damage. Vincent v. Lake Erie Transportation Co
51
Q

Common Carriers & Innkeepers

A

a. Common carriers and innkeepers are liable for intentional gross insults which cause patrons to suffer mental distress.
b. There is no requirement the defendant behave in an extreme or outrageous manner or that the victim suffer extreme distress

52
Q

Preponderance of the evidence

A

a. The greater weight of the evidence, not necessarily established by the greater number of witnesses testifying to a fact but by evidence that has the most convincing force

53
Q

Extended personality doctrine

A

a. Anything that is attached to the person is the extended person of themselves.

54
Q

Duty of care

A

a. An obligation to act in a reasonably careful manner in order to prevent harm to others

55
Q

Duty in negligence

A

a. There is a legally recognized relationship between the defendant and the plaintiff that obligates the defendant to act (or to refrain from acting) in a certain manner toward the plaintiff.

56
Q

Nonfeasance

A
  1. There is no duty owed in a nonfeasance context. Nonfeasance is generally the failure to intervene to confer a benefit upon another.
    a. However, courts will impose liability for nonfeasance.
    i. Special relationship;
    ii. An undertaking to act; or
    iii. A defendant who caused the plaintiff to rely on a gratuitous promise
57
Q

Misfeasance

A
  1. Misfeasance often consists of affirmative acts of risk-creating conduct, doing something that a reasonable person would not do. Misfeasance can also be shown by a negligent omission – failing to do something that a reasonable person would have done. Either risk-creating affirmative acts or negligent omissions generally lead to the finding of a duty.
58
Q

No Duty to rescue

A
  1. A person does not have a duty to aid another.

2. The rule is seen as the embodiment of the value placed on individualism in American society

59
Q

Duty to Rescue can be found IF

A
  1. The defendant created the peril
  2. “Special relationship”
    a. Common carrier-passenger, innkeeper-guest and ship captain-seaman.
    b. Employer-employee, school-student, and business-customer
    c. Contractual obligation
    d. Imposed by statute
60
Q

Duty to Protect

A

i. As a general principle, there is no obligation to protect another from harm. Where, however, the defendant and plaintiff stand in a relationship in which the latter has ceded the ability for self-protection, the former has a duty to make reasonable efforts to protect the latter.

61
Q

Foreseeability Plaintiff Requirement

A
  1. In order to establish a duty, the plaintiff must show that defendant’s negligence created foreseeable risks of harm to persons in her position. The concept that the scope of duty is limited to a foreseeable plaintiff arises out of one of the most famous cases in American law, Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co