Trespass to the Person

Question 1

Battery

Answer 1

the actual infliction of unlawful force on another person’.
E.g.: Collins v Wilcock [1984] – D (a police officer) grabbed C’s arm while attempting to stop her on suspicion of soliciting.

Question 2

Intentional interferences with the person
Main issue
common elements
intention

Answer 2

The critical issue is whether the claimant’s right to be free from unjustifiable interferences is violated.

Common elements [of these core torts]: (1) must be committed intentionally; (2) must cause direct and immediate ‘harm’; (3) actionable per se (without proof of loss)

Intention – two aspects: conduct (voluntary action) and consequences (result of one’s conduct).

Question 3

Assault

Answer 3

‘an act which causes another person to apprehend the infliction of immediate, unlawful force on his person.’

Stephens v Myers [1840] – D advanced towards C with a clenched fist (at a church meeting!)

Question 4

False Imprisonment

Answer 4

‘the unlawful imposition of constraint on another’s freedom from a particular place’.

Bird v Jones [1845] - D prohibited C from moving in the direction he wished to go [part of the public highway was closed because of a boat race]

Question 5

If not intentional it is negligence
Fowler v Lanning [1959]

Answer 5

D allegedly shot C at a shooting party. The particulars of the claim stated “the defendant shot the plaintiff” and nothing else held (by Diplock LJ): where contact was unintentional, C must plead and prove negligence.

Question 6

If not intentional it is negligence
Letang v Cooper [1965]:

Answer 6

D drove over C’s foot while she was sunbathing on grass outside a hotel. C pleaded trespass to avoid limitation period. Held (by Lord Denning): “…when the injury is not inflicted intentionally, but negligently, I would say the only cause of action is negligence and not trespass”.

Question 7

Recklessness as to the consequence of the conduct

Answer 7

Recklessness as to the consequences of the conduct may be sufficient (Pritchard v Co-operative Group Ltd [2012]). Does D foresee that their actions will have relevant consequences? (Smith LJ in Iqbal)

Question 8

Elements of Battery

Answer 8

An act (with which contact was made).

Unlawful contact – no consent, but hostility is not required (cf Wilson v Pringle).

Intending the unlawful contact (also transferred intent – Livingstone v Ministry of Defence [1984]).

Directness.

Question 9

Battery
Key cases

Answer 9

Collins v Wilcock [1984] – physical contact that is generally acceptable is not battery.

Innes v Wylie [1844] – there must be a positive act (cf Fagan v Metropolitan Police Commissioner [1969])

Cole v Turner [1704] – the least touching of another in anger is battery.

Williams v Humphrey [1975] – A boy pushed the plaintiff into a swimming pool, causing him injury (broken ankle). Held: sufficient for the act to have been intended.

Question 10

Battery
R v Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall, ex p Central Electricity Generating Board [1982] at 471.

Answer 10

‘an unwanted kiss may be a battery although the defendant’s intention may be most amiable

Question 11

Element of assault

Answer 11

D must intend the act that causes C to apprehend the infliction of force (Lunney, Nolan & Oliphant) – impossible to prove D’s intention otherwise [cf Horsey & Rackley stating the relevant issue is intending (or recklessness as) to cause C to apprehend infliction of force].

Reasonable apprehension (of immediate battery) – Stephens v Myers [1830] – judged objectively. Anticipation is key.

Reasonable apprehension of immediate and direct application of unlawful force – D must have the means to carry out the assault [See Stephens v Myers, Thomas v National Union of Mineworkers [1986], Mbasago v Logo Ltd [2007]

Question 12

Silence can amount to assault

Answer 12

R v Ireland & R v Burstow [1998]
The defendant and victim were engaged in a short romantic relationship, which the victim ended. Unhappy with this decision, the defendant proceeded to harass the victim over several months, making repeated phone calls, delivering hate mail, appearing unexpectedly, harassing her neighbours, inter alia, causing her to sustain psychiatric injury (severe depression).

Question 13

Words can amount to assault

Answer 13

R v Meade and Belt [1823]

Question 14

Elements of false imprisonment

Answer 14

Intention (or recklessness) as to the imprisonment – Iqbal v Prison Officers Association [2010].

Directness – Iqbal.

Complete restraint of motion – “A total restraint…of the liberty of the person” as per Patteson J in Bird v Jones [1845].
Unlawfulness – no need to intend

unlawfulness – R v Governor of Brockhill Prison, ex p Evans (No.2) [2001] and Esegbona v King’s College Hospital Foundation NHS Trust [2019].

Question 15

False Imprisonment
Bird v Jones [1845]

Answer 15

D wrongfully enclosed part of the footway on Hammersmith Bridge and charged for admission. C insisted on passing through that section without paying. D refused to let him proceed and told him he could go back and use the other side of the bridge. He refused and remained in the enclosure for 30 mins. Held: no false imprisonment. It is not false imprisonment if C has reasonable means to escape.

Question 16

False imprisonment
Robinson v Balmain Ferry Co Ltd [1910]

Answer 16

keeping someone on your property until they fulfil a reasonable condition is not false imprisonment.

Question 17

False imprisonment defences

Answer 17

Consent – Pile v Chief Constable of Merseyside [2020] – C was arrested for being drunk and disorderly. Note: Mental Capacity Act 2005 s 1

Necessity – F v West Berkshire Health Authority [1990] (unconscious patient, permanent incapacity).

Self-defence – Ashley v Chief Constable of West Sussex Police [2008].

Question 18

WILKINSON v DOWNTON [1897]

Answer 18

“The defendant has … wilfully done an act calculated to cause physical harm to the plaintiff — that is to say, to infringe her legal right to personal safety, and has in fact thereby caused physical harm to her. That proposition without more appears to me to state a good cause of action, there being no justification alleged for the act. This wilful injuria is in law malicious, although no malicious purpose to cause the harm which was caused nor any motive of spite is imputed to the defendant.”

Question 19

APPLICATION OF WILKINSON
Janvier v Sweeney [1919]

Answer 19

A private detective posed as a police officer and accused C of associating with a German spy. C suffered psychiatric trauma.

This is a case of deception as opposed to a practical joke with a clear intention to frighten C in order to obtain information from her.

Scope? Wong v Parkside Health NHS Trust [2001]

It is not necessary to prove that D wanted to produce intentional infliction of harm; ‘calculated’ to do harm means deliberately doing an act likely to result in physical or psychiatric harm (LJ Hale).

Rudeness or unfriendliness does not constitute a wilful act calculated to cause harm.

Question 20

APPLICATION OF WILKINSON
Wainwright v Home Office [2003]

Answer 20

No intention established: Ds were only sloppy but not reckless. Imputed intention ‘will not do’ (per Lord Hoffmann).

“In institutions and workplaces all over the country, people constantly do and say things with the intention of causing distress and humiliation to others. This shows a lack of consideration and appalling manners, but I am not sure that the right way to deal with it is always by litigation. […] It does not provide a remedy for distress which does not amount to recognised psychiatric injury […]” (Lord Hoffmann).

Question 21

RHODES v OPO [2015]

Question 22

Protection from Harassment Act 1997 (PHA)),

Answer 22

Section 1:

(1) A person must not pursue a course of conduct—
(A) which amounts to harassment of another, and
(B) which he knows or ought to know amounts to harassment of the other.

Question 23

Harassment

Answer 23

Section 7(2): References to harassing a person include alarming the person or causing the person distress

Section 1(2) above: either D or a reasonable person in possession of the same information must understand the conduct as harassment

Section 7(3): Course of conduct – on at least two occasions, i.e. does not cover one-off incidents. The further incidents apart and the less frequent they are, the less likely it will be ‘course of conduct’ – see also James v DPP [2009] (criminal case) but see Law Society v Kordowski [2011] – naming and shaming solicitors on website amounted to harassment even though published once.

Question 24

Defences and Remedies

Answer 24

Defences in s 1(3): s 1(1) does not apply to the course of conduct if the person who pursued it shows:

(A) that it was pursued for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime,
(B) that it was pursued under any enactment or rule of law or to comply with any condition or requirement imposed by any person under any enactment or
(C) that in the particular circumstances, the pursuit of the course of conduct was reasonable.