INTENTIONAL TORTS
Intentionally Inflicted Harms: The Prima Facia Case and Defenses
3 Positions of tort law:
Compensation – there should be compensation for the people who have suffered.
Corrective Justice – make sure that the recompense comes from the right person.
Public Policy & Social Control – incentives for reducing losses in our society.
ELEMENTS OF AN INTENTIONAL TORT
INTENT: ∆ desires the result or knows to a substantial certainty that it will occur.
§ 1 – INTENT
A person intentionally causes harm if the person brings about that harm either purposefully or knowingly.
i. Purpose – A person purposefully causes harm if the person acts with the desire to bring about that harm.
ii. Knowledge – A person knowingly causes harm if the person engaged in action knowing that harm is substantially certain to occur.
The definition is subjective; ∆ must, in her mind, exhibit desire or substantial certainty.
Desire: Intent is satisfied if the ∆ desires the consequences of his acts. The test is subjective.
Substantial Certainty: Intent is usually also satisfied when the ∆ is substantially certain that her acts will cause the elements of the tort to occur. The test is subjective.
Intentional conduct requires a showing that the actor either desires or knows with substantial certainty the tortuous result will occur as a result of the conduct.
Transferred Intent:
If ∆ intends any of the 5 transferable torts, but his acts, instead or in addition, result in any of the other 5 intentional torts, the ∆ is liable, even though he did not intend the other tort.
The 5 transferred intent torts are: battery, assault, false imprisonment, trespass to chattel, and trespass to land.
Intent to commit one tort satisfies the intent requirement for the other tort, and the intent to commit against one victim can transfer to any other victim.
VOLITIONAL ACT:
RESULT/CONSEQUENCE:
LACK OF CONSENT:
Intent; Volitional Act; Result/Consequence; Lack of Consent = Framework for all intentional torts.
BATTERY: Occurs when ∆’s acts, not consented to, intentionally cause harmful or offensive contact upon another.
Intent Required: intent to bring about the contact.
Harmful or Offensive Contact: The cause of action in battery protects not only injurious physical intrusion, but personal autonomy as well
· It is not required that the V knows of the harmful or offensive contact or of its harmful or offensive nature at the time of the intrusion.
· So long as society defines the contact as harmful or offensive, ∆ is liable for battery.
Voluntary Action: ∆’s voluntary action must be the direct or indirect legal cause of the harmful or offensive contact.
Consent: There needs to be a lack of consent by the victim.
Battery cases in med suits are rare, but usually happen when something different happens than what is consented to.
Athletic Injuries:
Πs consent to injury from blows administered in accordance with the rules of the game, but not when the blows are deliberately illegal.
A player is liable for injury in a tort action if his conduct is such that it is either deliberate, willful or with a reckless disregard for the safety of the other player so as to cause injury to that player, the same being a question of fact to be decided by a jury.
Before a party may proceed with a cause of action involving injury resulted from a recreational or sports activity, reckless or intentional conduct must exist.
§2 – RECKLESSNESS
An actor recklessly causes harm if:
The actor knows of the risk of harm created by his conduct, or knows facts that make that risk obvious to anyone in the actor’s situation, and
The precaution that would eliminate or reduce that risk involves burdens that are so slight relative to the magnitude of the risk as to render highly blameworthy the actor’s failure to adopt the precaution.
ASSAULT: Occurs when the ∆’s acts intentionally cause the V’s reasonable apprehension of immediate harmful or offensive contact.
· Conditional assault is still seen as assault.
· Intent Required: ∆ must desire or be substantially certain that his action will cause the apprehension of immediate harmful or offensive contact.
· Apprehension: The victim must perceive that harmful or offensive contact is about to happen to him, and it must be reasonable.
§ Fear is not a requisite of apprehension.
· Lack of Consent:
· Volitional Act:
Remember to consider the justifications: Moral, Compensation Rationale, and Deterrence Rationale.
FALSE IMPRISONMENT: Unlawful actions to intentionally cause confinement or restraint of the V within a bounded area from which they cannot reasonably leave.
Intent: The person must have the intent to confine the victim within the bounded area.
Act: The person has to actually confine the victim w/o the victim’s consent.
Consequence: The person has to be confined within a bound area.
· The confined area must be bound in all directions.
· 4 means of confinement or restraint:
I. physical barriers
o must surround V in all directions.
II. force or threat of immediate force against the victim, the victim’s family or others in her immediate presence, or the victim’s property.
o
NSIVE BATTERY
§18 Battery: Offensive Contact
An actor is subject to liability to another for batter if:
He acts intending to cause a harmful or offensive contact with the person of the other or a third person, or an imminent apprehension of such a contact, and
An offensive contact with the person of the other directly or indirectly result.
An act that is not done with the intention stated in Subsection (1)(a) does not make the actor liable to the other for a mere offensive contact with the other’s person although the act involves an unreasonable risk of inflicting it and, therefore, would be negligent or reckless if the risk threatened bodily harm.
Offensive Battery covers not only cases of direct contact with the plaintiff’s person, but also contact with “anything so closely attached to the plaintiff’s person that it is customarily regarded as a part thereof and which is offensive to a reasonable sense of personal dignity”.
NON-DEFENSES:
Mistake Doctrine: If a ∆ intends to do acts which would constitute a tort, it is no defense that the ∆ mistakes, even reasonably, the identity of the property or person he acts upon or believes incorrectly there is a privilege.
Insanity and Infancy: Neither insanity nor infancy are defenses for intentional torts. Intent is subjective however; if ∆ cannot comprehend the consequences of their actions, they may not possess the requisite intent.
DEFENSES
· Consent: Consent can be a defense to almost any intentional tort. The defense arises especially in battery cases, but it can arise in trespass to land or chattel cases also.
o Consent can be inferred from conduct, thus implied consent.
§ Whenever an emergency endangers the life or health of the plaintiff, consent is implied from the circumstances.
§ Consent of the parent is necessary for an operation on a child.
§ The law generally protects the guardian’s good faith decision for an adult incompetent. 3rd benefit is only available if the guardian consents.
o Athletic Injuries:
§ Πs consent to injury from blows administered in accordance with the rules of the game, but not when the blows are deliberately illegal.
