Battery
1. harmful contact battery: the intentional, unprivileged, unconsented to, and either harmful or offensive contact, or imminent apprehension of contact, and harmful contact results
2. offensive contact battery: the intentional, unprivileged, unconsented to and either harmful or offensive contact, or imminent apprehension of contact, and offensive contact results
i. offends a reasonable sense of personal dignity
a. snatching from hands (fisher)
b. racial discrimination
ii. must intend the contact
a. must subjective, substantially certain knowledge
b. presumed constructive intent (garratt)
c. liable for injuries regardless of foreseability (vosburg)
iii. physical impairment
iv. transmission contact is offensive only if results in actual exposure to HIV virus
Consent or the lack thereof determined from the objective reasonableness of the surrounding circumstances. (o’brien)
If a patient is incapable of giving consent a doctor may use his sound professional judgment to extend the scope of an operation. (kennedy)
An intentional blow not authorized by the rules of the game by an opposing player during a professional sports game does create liability under tort. (hackbart)
Consent procured by fraud or duress not valid
Intent to harm may not be inferred from a party who has sexual intercourse without telling his partner that he has a sexually transmittable disease. (state farm)
Emergency Action without Consent
Actor not liable if
an emergency makes it necessary or apparently necessary , in order to prevent harm to the other, to act before there is opportunity to obtain consent from the other or one empowered to consent for him and
has no reason to believe that the other, if he had the opportunity to consent, would decline
During the course of a riot, if one believes his life to be in danger, he is justified in using self-defense, even against an innocent victim, if he reasonably believes that the victim posed an immediate danger to him. (Courvoisier)
Self Defense by Force not Threatening Death or Serious Bodily Harm
Can use reasonable force not intended or likely to cause death or serious bodily harm to defend himself against unprivileged harmful or offensive
fense of Possession by Force Not Threatening Death of Serious Bodily Harm
Use force to stop intrusion on land or chattels if
intrusion is unprivileged
Actor reasonably believes intrusion stopped only by force used
actor first requested other to desist and other has disregarded, or actor reasonably believes that request will be useless or substantial harm done before made
Defense of Possession by Force Threatening Death or Serious Bodily Harm
Actor reasonably believes that the intruder, unless expelled or excluded, is likely to cause death or serious bodily harm to the actor or to the third person whom the actor is privileged to protect.
Necessity
A person may enter the land of another to avoid serious harm to one’s person, land, or chattels, or to those of a third person. A party acting under private necessity is liable for damages incurred to the property of others.
