Intentional Torts and Defenses to Intentional Torts
This intentional tort occurs when someone intentionally causes harmful or offensive contact with another person.
What is battery?
A grocery store employee mops the floor during business hours but doesn't put up a "wet floor" sign. A customer slips and falls. The store owed the customer this type of duty because they were lawfully on the premises for business purposes.
What is the duty owed to an invitee (or business invitee)?
This element requires the plaintiff to prove they suffered legally cognizable injury or damage.
What is actual harm (or damages)?
This element limits liability to those physical harms that result from the foreseeable risks created by the defendant's negligence.
What is proximate cause (or scope of liability/scope of risk)?
These two main categories of activities typically give rise to strict liability: keeping dangerous animals and engaging in these types of hazardous activities.
What are abnormally dangerous activities
This defense to intentional torts allows a person to use reasonable force to protect themselves from imminent harmful or offensive contact.
What is self-defense?
This occurs when a defendant fails to exercise the care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise under similar circumstances.
What is breach of duty?
According to Right v. Breen, a plaintiff who cannot prove this element—even if the defendant's conduct was negligent—will lose the case.
What is actual harm (or injury/damages)?
According to Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad, the plaintiff must be within this group of people put at risk by the defendant's breach of duty.
What is the general class of persons at risk (or the foreseeable zone of danger)?
In strict liability cases, the plaintiff must still prove this element showing that the defendant's activity actually caused the harm, even though fault need not be proven.
What is causation (or actual cause)?
A store security guard reasonably believes a customer is shoplifting and detains them for 10 minutes to investigate. It turns out the customer had a receipt. The guard can assert this defense to false imprisonment.
What is shopkeeper's privilege (or merchant's privilege)?
A university operates a chemistry lab that's open to students 24/7 with keycard access. The university knows that students sometimes work late at night when no supervisors are present. One night at 2 AM, a student is conducting an experiment alone. A chemical spills, and the student is injured. The student argues the university had a duty to provide supervision at all hours. The university argues it only had a duty to provide this—adequate safety equipment, proper training, and emergency protocols—not constant supervision.
Question: What is the scope of duty owed in a special relationship (or what are reasonable safety measures vs. constant supervision), and did the university breach its duty based on the foreseeability of harm and the burden of precaution?
The university likely did NOT breach its duty if it provided adequate safety equipment, proper training, emergency protocols, and warnings about working alone. The duty in a university-student special relationship is to exercise reasonable care, not to eliminate all risk or provide constant supervision for adult students engaged in inherently risky academic activities.
A restaurant fails to clean up a spill in the dining area. A customer slips on the wet floor and breaks their wrist. To prove actual cause, the customer must show that this test is satisfied—that the injury would not have occurred without the restaurant's negligence.
What is the but-for test (or but-for causation)?
three-step analysis for scope of risk test
requires identifying: (1) the risks created by defendant's breach, (2) the harm that resulted, and (3) comparing whether the harm falls within the scope of foreseeable risks.
When multiple defendants are involved in strict liability cases, courts apply these apportionment approaches—either based on which defendant caused which distinct injury, or if that's impossible, based on relative fault.
What are causal apportionment and fault apportionment?
uring a bar fight, Alex punches Ben. Ben pulls out a knife and advances toward Alex. Alex grabs a chair and hits Ben with it, breaking Ben's arm. In a battery suit by Ben, Alex would argue this, but the court must determine if the force used was this type of force.
What is self-defense, and what is reasonable (or proportional) force?
When determining breach, courts consider these factors including the likelihood of harm, the severity of potential injury, and the burden of taking precautions.
What are the risk-utility factors (or Hand Formula factors)?
A city negligently fails to repair a broken streetlight at a dangerous intersection. Late one night, two cars collide at that intersection. Investigation reveals that Driver A ran a stop sign while texting, and Driver B was speeding 20 mph over the limit. Both drivers sue the city. The city argues that even without the broken streetlight, the accident would have occurred due to the drivers' negligence. To establish actual cause, the drivers must prove this test is satisfied.
Question: What is the but-for test, and can the drivers prove that but-for the city's negligence (broken streetlight), the accident would not have occurred?
The drivers likely CANNOT prove but-for causation. Under the but-for test, they must show that the accident would not have occurred if the streetlight had been working. However, given that Driver A was texting and ran a stop sign, and Driver B was speeding significantly, the accident likely would have occurred regardless of the streetlight's condition. The drivers' own negligent conduct breaks the causal chain, making the city's negligence not an actual cause of the harm.
A construction company negligently leaves an open hole in the sidewalk. A pedestrian falls in and breaks their leg. While recovering in the hospital, they contract a rare infection. Under the continuum of harm approach, the company may still be liable if this type of harm—physical injury requiring hospitalization—was foreseeable, even if the specific manner was unusual.
What is the type (or nature/general category) of foreseeable harm?
A trucking company transports hazardous chemicals. Due to another driver's negligence, the truck is involved in an accident and the chemicals spill, causing environmental damage. Even though the accident was caused by a third party, the trucking company may still be strictly liable because they were engaged in this type of activity, and the harm that resulted—chemical spills—was within the scope of foreseeable risks.
What is an abnormally dangerous activity, and what is the scope of risk (or type of harm that makes the activity dangerous)?
In intentional tort cases, the plaintiff must prove this element showing that the defendant desired the consequence or knew it was substantially certain to occur, distinguishing it from mere negligence.
What is intent?
Sarah owns a small art gallery. On Tuesday evening after closing at 6 PM, she hosts a private wine-and-cheese reception for potential buyers (by invitation only). At 7 PM, her friend Mike, who wasn't invited to the reception, stops by because he saw the lights on and wanted to chat. Sarah waves him in and says "Come on in, but I'm busy with clients—help yourself to wine in the back room."
While walking to the back room, Mike passes through the gallery's storage area. Sarah knows there's a loose floorboard in the storage area that's hard to see in dim lighting, but she's been meaning to fix it and hasn't warned anyone because "only employees use this area." Mike steps on the loose board, it gives way, and he severely sprains his ankle.
Meanwhile, at 7:30 PM, Tom—a teenager who's been trespassing in the alley behind the gallery for weeks to smoke—notices the back door is slightly ajar (Sarah's employee forgot to lock it). Tom enters through the back door looking for something to steal. He also steps on the same loose floorboard and injures himself.
Finally, at 8 PM, one of the invited potential buyers, Janet, excuses herself to use the restroom. She takes a wrong turn and ends up in the storage area, where she too steps on the loose floorboard and is injured.
Question: What is the status of Mike, Tom, and Janet (invitee, licensee, or trespasser), what duty does Sarah owe to each, and is Sarah likely liable to each for their injuries?
Mike's Status: Licensee
Tom's Status: Trespasser
Janet's Status: Invitee (Business Invitee)
Three chemical companies (A, B, and C) each negligently discharge pollutants into a river. Scientific evidence shows that: (1) Company A's pollution alone would have been sufficient to kill all the fish, (2) Company B's pollution alone would have been sufficient to kill all the fish, (3) Company C's pollution alone would NOT have been sufficient to kill the fish, but (4) all three companies' pollution combined killed the fish. The but-for test fails for Companies A and B because removing either one's pollution would not have prevented the harm (the other's pollution was sufficient). This doctrine allows all three companies to be held liable.
Question: What is the substantial factor test, and how does it apply when multiple defendants each create sufficient conditions for the harm?
The substantial factor test applies when the but-for test fails due to multiple sufficient causes. Companies A and B can both be held liable because each of their actions was a substantial factor in bringing about the harm, even though neither was necessary (since the other's pollution alone was sufficient). Company C can also be held liable under the substantial factor test if its contribution, while not sufficient alone, materially contributed to the overall harm. This prevents defendants from escaping liability simply because another defendant's conduct was also sufficient to cause the same harm.
A bar serves alcohol to a visibly intoxicated patron who then drives and causes a fatal accident. The bar argues the patron's decision to drive was this type of cause that breaks the causal chain. However, under Palsgraf and scope of liability analysis, the court must determine whether the risk of drunk driving was within this group of foreseeable risks created by over-serving.
What is an intervening superseding cause, and what is the scope of foreseeable risks?
Two defendants are both strictly liable for separate abnormally dangerous activities that combine to cause a single, indivisible harm to the plaintiff. The court cannot determine which defendant caused which portion of the harm. The court will use this apportionment method, dividing liability based on each defendant's relative degree of fault or responsibility, even in a strict liability context.
What is fault apportionment (or comparative responsibility in strict liability cases)?