Intentional Torts
What are the Elements of a Battery
§ 103. Battery: Definition of Offensive Contact
A contact is offensive within the meaning of § 101(c)(ii) if:
(a) the contact offends a reasonable sense of personal dignity; or
(b) the contact is highly offensive to the other's unusually sensitive sense of personal dignity, and the actor knows that the contact will be highly offensive to the other.
Restatement (Second) of Torts § 197
(1) One is privileged to enter or remain on land in the possession of another if it is or reasonably appears to be necessary to prevent serious harm to
the actor, or his land or chattels . . . .
(2) Where the entry is for the benefit of the actor . . . he is subject to liability for any harm done in the exercise of the privilege stated in Subsection (1) to any legally protected interest of the possessor in the land or connected with it, except where the threat of harm to avert which the entry is made is caused by the tortious conduct or contributory negligence of the possessor.
Private Necessity
Elements of negligence
The defendant owed plaintiff a legal duty;
The defendant, by behaving negligently, breached that duty;
The plaintiff suffered actual damage;
The defendant’s negligence was an actual cause of this damage;
The defendant’s negligence was a “proximate cause” of the damage.
Risk/Utility Formula
Learned “Hand” formula
Impose liability where:
The burden of precaution is LESS THAN the probability of harm X the gravity of harm
Preponderance Test
Relaxed Causation Test
Quantified Value-of-the-Chance Approach
Preponderance Test - Reference to preponderance of the evidence and simple “but for test” and straightforward. Chance of recovery must be over 50% to collect damages
Relaxed Causation Test - Collects 100% of damages because there was a reduction in the chance of survival. No matter the difference.
Quantified Value-of-the-Chance Approach - Can recover damages of difference in recovery. So had 40% then negligence which led to 10% chance of survival so therefore she collects 30%.
a doctrine that allows the defendant to be held liable for an intentional tort he intended to commit against A but, instead, accidentally committed against B.
Transferred Intent
Tell me about Consent Rules
Capacity, Scope of Consent, Fraud/Mistake
Reasonable Person Standard. What's that all about
Restatement (Second) of Torts § 283
Conduct Of A Reasonable Man: The Standard
Unless the actor is a child, the standard of conduct to which he must conform to avoid being negligent is that of a reasonable man under like circumstances.
Wal - Mart Stores , Inc . v. Wright
Employee Manuals aren’t the law and you legally can't hold them up to a legal standard
Couple's Trampoline flies into the road and cuases and accident. What happens.
Thompson v. Kaczinski
We conclude the question of whether a serious injury to a motorist was within the range of harms risked by disassembling the trampoline and leaving it untethered for a few weeks on the yard less than forty feet from the road is not so clear in this case as to justify the district court’s resolution of the issue as a matter of law at the summary judgment stage.
An act by the defendant creating a reasonable apprehension in plaintiff of immediate harmful or offensive contact to plaintiff’s person
Assault
Privileges, Give me Some
Self-defense Key requirements:
(1) reasonably apparent need for self-defense and
(2) the force, threat or imprisonment used is reasonable in degree and responsiveness to the apparent threat
Note there are often jurisdiction-specific requirements (hold your ground, retreat, dwelling)
Defense of property
•Key requirements: reasonable force (Katko limitation!) and actor reasonably believes that the intrusion can be prevented or terminated only by the force used
Shopkeeper’s privilege (detention)
Key requirements: reasonable suspicion and reasonable manner/duration of detention
Negligence as it relates to Children, People with Disabilities, Old People
Section 10 - Children
(a) A child's conduct is negligent if it does not conform to that of a reasonably careful person of the same age, intelligence, and experience, except as provided in Subsection (b) or ©
(c) The special rule in Subsection (a) does not apply when the child is engaging in a dangerous activity that is characteristically undertaken by adults.
Section 11 - Disability
(a) The conduct of an actor with physical disability is negligent only if it does not conform to that of a reasonably careful person with the same disability.
(b) The conduct of an actor during a period of sudden incapacitation or loss of consciousness resulting from physical illness is negligent only if the sudden incapacitation or loss of consciousness was reasonably foreseeable to the actor.
(c) An actor's mental or emotional disability is not considered in determining whether conduct is negligent, unless the actor is a child.
Section 12 – Knowledge & Skills
If an actor has skills or knowledge that exceed those possessed by most others, these skills or knowledge are circumstances to be taken into account in determining whether the actor has behaved as a reasonably careful person.
Res Ispa Loquitur
It may be inferred that harm suffered by the plaintiff is caused by negligence of the defendant when
(a)the event is of a kind which ordinarily does not occur in the absence of negligence;
(b)other responsible causes, including the conduct of the plaintiff or third persons, are sufficiently eliminated by the evidence; and
(c)the indicated negligence is within the scope of the defendant’s duty to the plaintiff.
“thin skull” or “eggshell skull”
the fact that the harm was much worse than anyone would have expected does not limit his liability.
An act or omission to act on the part of the defendant that confines or restrains the plaintiff to a bounded area
False Imprisonment
Single v. Dual Intent Tell me about them
Both come from the Restatement second of Torts
Single Intent - means that you cause harm or offend someone if you didn’t intent to
Double Intent - means you intended to cause harm and offend and succeeded
A person confronted with a sudden emergency which he does not create, who acts according to his best judgment or, because of insufficient time to form a judgment fails to act in the most judicious manner, is not guilty of negligence if he exercises the care of a reasonable prudent person in like circumstances.
Sudden-Emergency Instruction
THE BUT-FOR TEST OF CAUSATION
Tell me about it
SUICIDE
an intentional suicide or suicide attempt is a superseding cause of plaintiff’s harm, freeing the defendant from any liability for negligence, because it is unforeseeable as a matter of law.
two main exceptions to this traditional rule: (1) where the defendant’s tortious conduct induces a mental illness or an “uncontrollable impulse” in the plaintiff (or decedent) from which the suicide attempt (or suicide) results; and (2) where there is a special relationship between the two parties, that presumes or includes knowledge by the defendant of plaintiff’s risk of committing suicide.
Torts to Property, what are they?
Trespass to land, Conversion of chattels, Trespass to chattels
Damages for Trespass
Can be for the property damaged value and the amount to fix it
Injunctive can force something to be moved
Punitive for the amount of the property’s worth and for loss of value
In order to replace a common law duty of care with a duty of care from a statute or regulation, the following elements must be met: (1) the statute or regulation must clearly define the required standard of conduct; (2) the statute or regulation must have been intended to prevent the type of harm the defendant’s act or omission caused; (3) the plaintiff must be a member of the class of persons the statute or regulation was designed to protect; and (4) the violation must have been the proximate cause of the injury.
O’Guin v. Bingham County, Negligence per se
Hypo: Two people shoot at a quail and ends up hitting a third party person. What happens?
Summers v. Tice,
each is liable for the resulting injury to the boy, although no one can say definitely who actually shot him. To hold otherwise would be to exonerate both from liability, although each was negligent, and the injury resulted from such negligence.
David is driving 25 MPH in 25 MPH zone down a four lane street where there are children playing. One nine-year-old child, Kevin, runs into the street chasing a soccer ball. David, without looking over his shoulder, swerves into the other lane to avoid Kevin and in the process he hits a car, driven by Peter, that was speeding past him in the left-hand lane going in the same direction.
Peter loses control of his car, hits a telephone pole and is seriously and permanently injured. The telephone pole, owned by the local phone company TeleCo, easily snaps into two pieces and hits Kevin, who is still in the street, knocking him unconscious and resulting in permanent injuries.
TeleCo never did any testing of its poles to establish how easily the poles broke. The only factor used in manufacturing the poles was cost. The poles were made of low quality trees and were not treated in any significant manner except for a coating of tar. No reinforcement was used on the poles.