Torts Outline
Intentional Torts
I) Torts to Person or Property
A) What is Tort Law?
1) Torts are wrongs recognized by law as grounds for a lawsuit. All torts involve conduct that falls below a legal standard.
2) All tort cases result in harm to another person that the law defines as a legal injury
(i) A breach of contract is often grounds for a lawsuit, but a breach of contract is often not considered to be a tort at all.
(ii) Not all crimes are torts and not all torts are crimes
3) Tort law aims at vindicating individual rights and redressing private harms.
4) Two reasons for tort law are compensation and deterrence. However, we don’t want too much of either. Tort law is about achieving balance.
5) Requiring Fault
(i) Fault is one of the essential elements of liability Tort law generally requires fault for liability, either because it is intentional or negligent. Only a few areas of tort law assign liability without fault [Van Camp v McAfoos].
B) Intent
1) Overview and Definition – Intentional torts share the requirement that the defendant intentionally commit the elements that define the tort.
(i) The Restatement definition defines intent to mean either (1) that the defendant desires the result or (2) knows to a substantial certainty that it will occur.
(a) This definition is subjective. The defendant must, in his mind, exhibit desire or substantial certainty. The fact that a reasonable person would have been substantially certain is not dispositive, but only evidentiary.
2) Intent as “Desire” – Intent is satisfied if the defendant desires the consequences of his acts. The test is subjective, meaning that the court must conclude that the defendant, in his own mind, did in fact desire the consequences constituting the tort.
3) Intent as “Substantial Certainty” – Intent is usually also satisfied when the defendant is substantially certain that his acts will cause the elements of the tort to occur. The substantial certainty test is subjective. The defendant must actually in his own mind know the results that constitute the tort will occur.
(i) Substantial certainty should not be confused with reckless conduct. The defendant is reckless when he takes a substantial, unreasonable risk that the elements of the tort will occur. Intentional conduct requires a showing that the actor either desires or knows with substantial certainty the tortuous result will occur as a result of his conduct.
(ii) Test is subjective – The word “intent” is used to denote that the actor desires to cause consequences of his act, or that he believes that the consequences are substantially certain to result from it. The basic question is not what a reasonable person would have desired or believed, but what the particular Δ in fact desired or believed.
4) Transferre
a privilege.
(ii) So long as the defendant intends to enter the property, the fact that he mistook the identity of the property or other circumstances is irrelevant (unless there is a defense, such as self-defense)
(iii) This doctrine effectively imposes strict liability on a defendant who interferes with another’s property or person by mistaking the object’s identity or other circumstances that would justify interference. Policy: prevents unjust enrichment
6) Insanity and Infancy
(i) Unlike criminal law, neither insanity nor infancy are defenses for intentional torts. However, intent is subjective and requires that the defendant actually desires or be substantially certain the elects of the tort will occur.
(a) Consequently, if the defendant is extremely mentally impaired or very young, he may not actually possess the requisite intent
(ii) The child or the insane person need not, however, appreciate the significance or wrongness of their act.
Policy: The law of torts is not criminal aw and does not condemn, but only shifts the economic burdens of loss (i.e. Innocent victims of the insane and infants shouldn’t pay).