Intentional Torts and Defenses
A salesperson got into a fierce argument with a rival colleague who was competing with the salesperson for the same bonus. The salesperson threatened to send a text communicating a very embarrassing--and potentially career-ending--fact about the rival to a number of executives at their company. The salesperson started texting. The rival believed that the only way she could prevent the salesperson from sending the text was to grab the phone from her, and the rival reached out and grabbed the salesperson's phone. The salesperson was startled by this act of aggression and believed that she was under attack. The salesperson picked up a chair and hit the rival on the head so hard that the rival sustained a concussion. The salesperson started to raise the chair a second time, prompting the rival, fearful for her life, to push the salesperson, who fell and broke her arm. The rival subsequently sued the salesperson for battery, and the salesperson counter-sued the rival for battery as well.
Who, if anyone, is likely to successfully raise a defense of self-defense, and for which act?
This defense applies if the defendant reasonably believed that the use of force was necessary in order to defend himself (or someone else) from an imminent and unlawful use of force. A reasonable belief means that an objectively reasonable person in the defendant’s situation would believe that the use of force is necessary to defend against the unlawful force, and that the amount of force used by the defendant is not disproportionate to the threat
A lifeguard was the sole employee in charge of supervising the safety of patrons at a community swimming pool for a 45-minute shift. With 15 minutes left in her shift, the lifeguard decided that because the swimmers in the pool were all adults and seemed to be competent, she would go into the guard shack and get a snack. While the lifeguard was gone, an argument broke out between two teenagers on the pool deck that escalated into a shoving match. One of the teenagers shoved the other teenager onto a lounge chair. The lounge chair then toppled over, jettisoning the teenager onto the pool deck. During the fall, the teenager’s gold bracelet broke free from his wrist and was flung into the pool, where it was lost in the pool’s filtration system. The teenager sued the lifeguard for negligence to recover for his lost bracelet.
Assuming that the teenager was not contributorily negligent and that there are no applicable statutes, is the lifeguard likely to be found the proximate cause of the teenager’s lost bracelet?
In other words, the proximate-cause requirement ensures that a defendant is held responsible only for foreseeable types of harm. To determine the existence of proximate causation, the critical inquiry is whether the type of injury was a reasonably foreseeable result of the defendant’s negligent act or acts.
A homeowner purchased a telescoping handle to attach to a rolling paintbrush. As the homeowner expected, the handle allowed him to reach the upper portions of his bedroom’s walls without using a ladder. However, the handle would retract occasionally while the homeowner was using it. The user manual warned of the handle’s tendency to retract when operated at certain angles, and advised users to avoid operating the handle at those angles. The homeowner read the manual, but he was unable to reach a certain corner of his room without operating the handle at the proscribed angles. At one point the handle retracted into the homeowner’s hand, spraining his finger. Other telescoping handles on the market came with a trigger-lock mechanism that a painter could engage to lock the handle in place at different extensions, and then release the lock and retract the handle as needed. These handles did not retract in mid-use when locked.
In a jurisdiction applying the risk-utility test to products liability actions, could the homeowner establish that the telescoping handle had a design defect?
B. Yes, because a reasonable alternative design exists.
A product is unreasonably dangerous, even if it satisfies ordinary consumer expectations, if the risk of danger inherent in the challenged design outweighs the design’s benefits. Here, a reasonable alternative design exists.
A teen had his lawn mower serviced by a hardware store. The service included blade sharpening, which required removal and remounting of the blade. After the service, the teen immediately began mowing lawns for his neighbors. When the teen was on his second lawn, the blade detached from the mower. The detached blade nicked a piece of concrete from a garden statue and propelled the piece of concrete into the teen’s face, lacerating his cheek. It was later determined that the technician who had serviced the mower at the hardware store had not properly remounted the mower’s blade after sharpening it.
If the teen sues the hardware store for negligence, which of the following best describes whether the teen will be able to establish proximate causation?
C. The teen will be able to establish proximate causation because, regardless of whether the precise sequence of events was not foreseeable, the type of harm was reasonably foreseeable.
One of the elements of an ordinary negligence claim is proximate causation. The basic rule of proximate cause is that an actor should not be liable for every possible harmful effect of his negligent conduct, but only for those harms arising from the particular risks that a reasonable person in the actor’s position should have been able to foresee arising from that conduct.
A supervisor frequently teased an employee because of his weight, and used an unflattering nickname for him, in front of colleagues in the workplace. The teasing caused the employee to become depressed and to seek psychological counseling.
In an action for intentional infliction of emotional distress, which of the following facts is likely to be most helpful to the employee on the issue of whether the supervisor’s teasing amounted to extreme and outrageous conduct?
B. The fact that the supervisor was in a position of authority over the employee.
Although insults alone generally are not deemed to be "extreme and outrageous" conduct, courts tend to find offensive words by a defendant who is in a position of authority over the plaintiff—such as exists between a supervisor and employee—to constitute “extreme and outrageous” conduct
On a cold January night, a driver was taking his friend home after a night out. The driver, wishing to avoid a serious traffic accident on the most direct route, selected an alternate route that he knew went through a high-crime area. During the drive, the driver grew fearful when he saw groups of people on the street corners in the high-crime area. The driver got lost and stopped the car on the side of the road in order to regain his bearings. Without the driver’s permission, his friend rolled down the window and asked a group of men for directions. The driver panicked and drove to the next block to get away from the men. At that point he pulled over again, got out of the car, and, furious with his friend, pulled the friend out of the car and told him that the ride was over. The driver got back into the car and sped away, leaving the friend behind. The friend was robbed at gunpoint and experienced an acute hysterical event triggered by post-traumatic stress disorder from a previous violent assault. The friend collapsed on the street and remained there until the next morning, when police officers found him and took him to a nearby hospital. At the hospital, the friend was treated for frostbite from exposure and admitted for psychiatric distress. The friend sued the driver to recover for his injuries.
Assuming the driver was unaware of the friend’s post-traumatic stress disorder, what is the driver’s likely liability, if any?
C. The driver will be liable only for the friend’s exposure, because the psychiatric distress was not reasonably foreseeable.
The driver will likely be liable for the friend’s exposure, because that was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of abandoning the friend in the middle of the night in cold weather. The driver will also likely be liable for the friend’s psychiatric distress. Although the friend’s post-traumatic stress disorder made him much more susceptible than others to harm from being abandoned and then robbed, the general type of harm—emotional trauma—was a reasonably foreseeable risk of abandoning someone in a high-crime area under these circumstances.
Also eggshell skull rule?
A consumer purchased an electric countertop grill. The box containing the grill included a 65-page user’s manual. Page 38 of the manual advised against plugging other household appliances into the same outlet as the grill, because the grill’s voltage demands could blow a fuse or start an electrical fire. Instead, page 38 advised users to plug the grill into its own dedicated outlet. Page 38’s warnings appeared in the same size and type font as the rest of the manual and were not preceded by the words “warning” or “caution.” A two-page illustrated quick-start-up guide did not mention using a dedicated outlet for the grill. The consumer skimmed the user’s manual and consulted the quick-start-up guide before operating the grill. He plugged the grill into the same outlet as his toaster oven and operated both at once. This sparked an electrical fire at the kitchen outlet. The consumer suffered from minor smoke inhalation and was forced to remodel the kitchen due to smoke damage.
Is the consumer likely to recover on a products liability claim against the grill’s manufacturer for negligently failing to warn him of the danger?
A. Yes, because the warnings on page 38 were not legally effective in their presentation.
A product has an informational defect when providing a reasonable warning could reduce or eliminate the foreseeable risk of harm posed by the product, and omitting the warning makes the product unreasonably dangerous. A warning can be legally defective in its presentation or its content. Legally effective warnings should be presented in a way calculated to gain the average user’s attention.
While on a walk, a woman was approached by a man with a knife who demanded money from her. She ran away, but he chased after her. The man was gaining on her when the woman noticed a bicycle propped up against a tree, and she jumped on the bike and rode away. She rode the bike home and planned to return it the next day. However, she did not find time to return it until six days later. The owner was glad to have the bike back but angry that the woman kept it for so long. The owner sued the woman for trespass to chattel.
Who will likely prevail in this action?
B. The owner, because the woman did not return the bike promptly once she was out of danger.
The owner will likely prevail, because the woman did not return the bike promptly once she was out of danger. A person may be found liable for trespass to chattels by intentionally taking an action that either (1) dispossesses another of personal property that the other rightfully possesses, or (2) meddles with such property, but in this case usually only if the meddling results in actual harm to a legally protected interest of the rightful possessor (such as impairing the property’s usefulness or value; or depriving the rightful possessor of the use of the property for a substantial time
A driver traveling cross-country to visit family grew tired late at night. Fearful of falling asleep at the wheel, the driver pulled off the road onto a strip of land that he believed to be owned by the state. The driver intended to sleep for a few hours, thinking that it was lawful to occupy state land for a short period of time. In fact, the land was privately owned. The landowner saw the driver’s car and recorded the license plate number, but was afraid to confront the driver about the intrusion. The driver slept in the car for a few hours and then drove away, leaving no damage to the property.
If the landowner subsequently sues the driver for trespass, is the driver likely to be found liable?
A. Yes, because the driver intended to drive onto the land and did so without privilege or consent.
A person may be found liable for trespass to land when he or she intentionally takes an action that causes a physical invasion of real property, without the consent of the true owner or other rightful possessor, and without a privilege to do so.
A 17-year-old high school student was invited to attend his neighbors’ New Year’s Eve party. At the party, one of the hosts served the student a glass of champagne, which the student drank, believing it to be sparkling apple juice. A few moments later, a second host served the student another glass of champagne. The student drank the second drink and found himself almost immediately in possession of a third glass of champagne, courtesy of a third host. Within the hour, the first host gave the student a fourth glass of champagne, and the third host served the student a fifth glass of champagne. Immediately after consuming his fifth glass of champagne in less than an hour, the student passed out and was transported to the hospital, where he was treated for alcohol toxicity.
Assume that contributory negligence does not apply, and that the jurisdiction does not have any statute that alters the common-law causation tests applicable to negligence actions for situations involving social hosts serving alcohol.
In a negligence action against the three party hosts, which of the following theories of actual causation would most likely lead to the student establishing causation?
C. Substantial-factor causation.
D. Alternative causation.
The concurrent-causes test for actual causation applies if: (1) multiple acts or forces combined to cause an injury, and (2) none of the forces alone would have been sufficient to cause the injury.
A plaintiff sued a street vendor after suffering from food poisoning from a hot dog. The vendor purchased the hot dog as part of a large lot from a manufacturer. The vendor did not inspect the hot dog packages when they arrived from the manufacturer. However, while loading his cart, the vendor observed that several packages of hot dogs had broken seals and were emitting a foul odor. The vendor cooked and served the hot dogs anyway. He served some after cooking them for less than a minute. The plaintiff had noticed that the center of his hot dog was cold and only ate half of it.
Is the plaintiff likely to prevail in a products liability action, based on a theory of negligence, against the vendor?
Intermediate sellers like the street vendor have a duty to use reasonable care not to sell defective products. An intermediate seller is negligent if he knows or has reason to know that a product is defective, but sells it anyway, without at least warning the customer of the defect.
A cyclist riding on a rural road observed a car behind her waiting to pass her. The cyclist saw that the road ahead crested upward and that she did not have extended visibility. Nevertheless, believing the car could pass her safely, the cyclist signaled to the car to go around her. Although the driver also could not see beyond the crest of the hill, he heeded the cyclist’s signal, pulled his car into the left lane, and began accelerating up the hill to pass the cyclist. As the car crested the hill, still in the left lane, it collided head-on with an oncoming truck that was traveling the speed limit in the proper lane. The drivers of both the car and the truck were severely injured. The truck driver brought a negligence action against the car driver.
Which of the following issues is likely to be dispositive of the truck driver’s claim?
A. Whether colliding with a vehicle coming from the other direction was foreseeable to a reasonable person in the car driver’s position.
The pivotal issue is whether the car driver’s actions were the legal, or proximate, cause of the collision. One of the elements of an ordinary negligence claim is proximate causation. The basic rule of proximate cause is that an actor should not be liable for every possible harmful effect of his negligent conduct, but only for those harms arising from the particular risks that a reasonable person in the actor’s position should have been able to foresee arising from that conduct.
A sudden breach in a dam caused rapid, severe flooding in a nearby city. In an attempt to help people evacuate, an off-duty police officer directed vehicles through a farmer’s private property to a highway without the farmer’s consent. The vehicles did significant damage to the farmer’s land and crops.
In a subsequent action by the farmer against the officer for trespass, what is the best argument in defense?
B. The officer reasonably believed that the use of the farmer’s property was necessary to avert an imminent public disaster.
C. The officer did not foresee that the use of the farmer’s property would cause as much damage as it did.
B. The officer reasonably believed that the use of the farmer’s property was necessary to avert an imminent public disaster.
A public necessity defense to an intentional tort is available where a defendant reasonably believed that it was necessary to interfere with the plaintiff's property rights in order to avert a public disaster
Two motorists were drag-racing down a rural road when both cars skidded on a slick section of the road and ran onto private property adjacent to the road. In the course of this crash, one of the cars hit and damaged a tool shed on the property. Both cars came to rest, completely totaled, in roughly the same location a little past the shed. The car's impact into the shed had sparked a fire, ultimately burning the remnants of both cars and the shed before the flames could be extinguished. The final damage to the cars and the shed was so complete that it was not possible to determine which car had hit the shed by looking at the physical evidence. Both motorists denied being the one whose car had hit the shed. The property owner brought a negligence action against both motorists for the loss of the shed and the tools that had been inside it.
In the negligence lawsuit, which of the following causation doctrines will the court most likely apply to determine actual causation?
If there are multiple defendants who were negligent, only one of the defendants caused the plaintiff’s injury, but it is impossible for the plaintiff to determine which defendant actually caused the injury, then courts will typically apply the alternative-causes doctrine to determine the actual-cause element of a negligence claim. In these cases, the plaintiff bears the initial burden of proving that one of the defendants must have caused the plaintiff’s injury. After the plaintiff makes that showing, then the burden shifts to each defendant to show that his particular act of negligence was not the actual cause of the injury. However, the court will find that all defendants who cannot exculpate themselves (i.e., show that they did not cause the injury) are jointly responsible for actually causing the injury.
A homeowner purchased a power sander from a home improvement store. He got sawdust in his eyes the first time he used the sander on his hardwood floors. The sawdust scratched the cornea in one of his eyes, damaging his vision. He brought a products liability action against the home improvement store, alleging that the sander’s design was defective. At trial, the homeowner introduced evidence that the sander could be fitted with a type of vacuum-bag attachment that collects debris generated by the sander’s operation. The vacuum bag reduced the incidence of eye injuries by 30 percent, but also reduced the sander’s speed by 70 percent.
Is the homeowner likely to prevail in a jurisdiction applying the risk-utility test?
Under the risk-utility test, a product is unreasonably dangerous if the danger associated with foreseeable use of the product outweighs the product’s utility, and there exists a reasonable alternative design to the one that caused the plaintiff’s injury.
To be reasonable, an alternative design must not substantially impair the product’s usefulness for its intended purpose
A woman allowed her friend to use her bicycle for a weekend. The bike was old, dented in several places, and its paint was chipped and faded. The woman preferred this condition because she thought it was less likely that someone would steal the bike. The friend did not know this, and decided to fix up the bike before returning it. The friend repaired the dents, painted the bike a glossy red, and replaced the hardware so it looked more modern. The woman was furious when she got the bike back and sued the friend for conversion.
Which one of the following issues is most likely to be determinative of whether the friend committed conversion of the woman's bike?
For the tort of conversion of chattels, there must be both: (1) an intentional exercise of near-total, owner-type dominion over personal property, coupled with (2) a resulting serious interference with the rights of the true owner or other rightful possessor.
A man was driving across town when he heard a news broadcast warning that a tornado was headed toward the town and advising people to seek shelter immediately. Fearful for his life, the man pulled up to the nearest residence and knocked on the door. When no one answered, the man broke into the home and sought shelter in the basement. The man fell asleep and awoke several hours later when the homeowner returned and entered the basement.
In a suit for trespass against the man, the homeowner is likely to recover damages for which of the following harms, if any?
B. Only for damage to the home from the break-in and for interference with the homeowner’s property rights after the tornado had passed.
Private necessity provides a valid defense to trespass to land if the trespass is necessary to prevent serious harm to either the trespasser himself, or to the trespasser’s real or personal property. However, the privilege to trespass under a claim of private necessity only lasts as long as the danger lasts.
A woman hired a pet sitter and a house sitter to care for her pets and house while she was traveling. No one else had access to the house. The pet sitter visited the house every morning; the house sitter visited the house every evening. When the woman returned from traveling, she discovered that the bathroom sink’s faucet had been left running. The sink had overflowed, causing extensive water damage to the bathroom floor. Both the pet sitter and the house sitter admitted to using the bathroom sink, but both denied leaving the faucet running. It was impossible to determine how long the faucet had been left running.
If the woman brings a negligence action against the pet sitter and house sitter, which theory of causation is most likely to apply?
The alternative-causes doctrine applies if (1) multiple actors were negligent, (2) at least one of the actors caused the victim’s harm, and (3) it is impossible to tell which actor’s negligence caused the harm.
A young boy was injured when he collided with another child on a neighbor’s backyard trampoline.
In a subsequent action brought by the boy against the neighbor, which of the following is NOT a consideration in determining whether the neighbor could be found strictly liable for conducting an abnormally dangerous activity?
B. Whether the neighbor foresaw the risk of injury and used reasonable care.
The hallmark of an abnormally dangerous activity is that no amount of reasonable care is sufficient to mitigate its dangerousness. Therefore, whether the trampoline owner foresaw the risk and used reasonable care is irrelevant to a determination of whether the activity is abnormally dangerous.
A woman suffered from delusions which rendered her insane. Despite suffering from a mental illness, she was able to engage in some daily activities and enjoyed riding a bicycle around the neighborhood. During one such ride, she experienced a delusion that distracted her and caused her to slam into a pedestrian. The pedestrian suffered a broken arm, which also affected his livelihood, and he sued the woman for the intentional tort of battery, defined as an intentional, nonconsensual contact with the plaintiff or his effects, which contact caused harm to the plaintiff.
On the issue of the requisite state of mind to establish battery, which party will prevail?
B. The woman, because she did not intend to hit the pedestrian.
On the issue of the requisite state of mind to establish the intentional tort of battery, the woman will prevail, because she did not intend to hit the pedestrian. The woman unintentionally hit the pedestrian as a result of the distraction caused by a delusion.