The Intentional Torts
Battery (transferrable)
The legally protected interest for Battery is one’s bodily safety.
Intent Necessary: Intent to make contact
Privilege: Consent, Self-Defense, Defense of Others, Emergency Exception, Authority of Law, Discipline
Damages: If the act was done with malice, punitive. Nominal. Compensatory
Trespass to Land (transferrable)
The legally protected interest is exclusive possession of land
Intent Necessary: to intend to (a), or intend (b), or intend (c)
Privilege: Necessity, Consent, Self-Defense, Defense of Others, Defense of Property
Damages: Nominal, Compensatory and Punitive (if malice can be proven)
Damage need not be proven for plaintiff to recover.
Duty
A duty is a legal obligation to act with reasonable care
Factual
Defendant was negligent and negligence resulted in harm
NOT “Conduct caused harm” but “Breach of duty” caused the harm.
Proximate Cause (Scope of Liability)
any cause which in the natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by an efficient intervening cause, produces a particular foreseeable result and w/out which the result would not have occurred. Determines the legal liability for the harm/if you will have to pay for it.
Overall, proximate cause operates to shield a Defendant from liability even though they are a factual cause of the complained of harm.
D is only liable for those harms that are of the same general type or nature as the reasonably foreseeable risk of harm created by D’s negligent conduct.
Assault (transferrable)
The legally protected interest for assault is one’s mental tranquility from the apprehension of imminent harmful and offensive contact.
Intent Necessary: actor intend to put him in apprehension of imminent harmful bodily contact or offensive contact.
Privilege: Consent, Self-Defense, Defense of Others, Authority of Law, Discipline
Damages: Nominal; jurisdiction-dependent for punitive
Trespass to Chattel (transferrable)
The legally protected interest is right to personal property
Intent: Purpose for intermeddling with Chattel or substantial certainty intermeddling will result from the act.
Privilege: Necessity, Consent, Self-Defense, Defense of Property, Recovery of Property, Discipline
Damages: Actual damages are required. Diminished value or for the time you were dispossessed of the chattel. No nominal damages awarded for harmless intermeddling.
“Is there a duty owed?
s a question for the court to answer on each case.
The only thing that is a question of law
Screening mechanism for Negligence claims
Balances interests of potential victims against interests of certain classes of actors in freedom of action
Sometimes careless conduct does not give rise to liability
I.e. a party host giving alcohol to someone who is almost certainly already drunk. Unless you’re New Jersey
Two tests
But-For Test
“But for” meaning absent D’s negligent conduct, P wouldn’t have suffered the harm
Usually just used if there is one contributing cause.
Substantial Factor test
General
Multiple forces combine simultaneously to cause the harm
Any one of these forces is sufficient to cause the harm alone
It is impossible to determine which force caused which portion of the harm
The negligent conduct was a substantial factor in causing the harm
What Proximate cause should look like:
Natural, continuous sequence between cause and effect.
Likely to produce result
Could be foreseen with prudent foresight
Considering remoteness in time/space
Reasonably close - time and space
The further away it is, the less likely you will be able to recover.
Policy factors for “Reasonably close”:
Logic
Common sense
Policy
Precedent
What justice demands
False Imprisonment (transferrable)
Legally protected right is the right to be free from confinement
Intent Necessary: Intent to cause confinement
Privilege: Consent, Shopkeeper’s Privilege, Self-Defense, Authority of Law, Discipline
Damages: Punitive, Compensatory, Nominal
Conversion (nontransferrable)
The legally protected interest in dominion over property
Intent: Purpose of dominating the property
Privilege: Consent, Self-Defense, Defense of Property, Recovery of Property
Damages: Full market value for the item
Sources of Duty
SCCOVL
GENERAL RULE: NO DUTY! Unless…
Special Relationship
Innkeeper with guests
Common carrier w/ passengers
Landlord w/ tenants
Universities and their students WHEN there is criminal activity in the dormitories
Invitor and Invitee (Premises Liability)
Dependent Concurrent Cause:
Concurrent acts of negligent conduct where neither alone would be enough to cause the injury. Separate combine to cause plaintiff’s harm (needed to be both!) (Hill)
Foreseeability Test
D is only liable for the ordinary and natural results of his negligent conduct
NOT liable for unforeseeable consequences of negligent conduct
Liable for aggravation of pre-existing illness due to negligent conduct
Liable for foreseeable damage even though extent of damages is not foreseeable
Notes:
If there are factors that caused P’s harm that fall outside the scope of A’s own wrongdoing then they are not responsible for that harm that occurred outside.
Ex. A tree falling onto a car falls outside the scope of the fact the driver was speeding
Scope of Liability
Foreseeable Plaintiff and the foreseeable harm based on the risk posed by the conduct
False Arrest
(Enright)
Intent Necessary: Intent to arrest an individual under legal authority of law
Privilege: Authority of Law
Damages: Punitive
A confines another within meaning of 8(d) if
(a) A asserts legal authority to take O into custody or to otherwise confine O;and
(b) O submits to such confinement b/c O believes they have duty to comply with
assertion or they may face adverse legal/physical consequences
Consent
Consent is an affirmative defense for
Emergency Exception (Battery)
Section 17 Emergency Exception
If A engages in otherwise tortious intentional conduct for the purpose of preventing or reducing a risk to the life or health of another, A is NOT liable to O provided that
Breach of Duty
Once it is determined there is a duty owed… was the duty breached?
This can occur through omission or commission (not doing something or doing something).
Failure to Act
General Rule: No duty exists to warn or protect another.
If unreasonable risk of harm is inherent in D’s conduct, D must reduce that risk so far as reasonably possible.
ONLY then will an adequate warning of the remaining risk constitute “reasonable care.”
Reasonable Care:
Yardstick with which to measure a person and their conduct
Independent Concurrent Cause:
When multiple events combine to cause injury that would have occurred even if one of them were to be removed. (Anderson v. MPLS)
“Multiple Sufficient Causes”
Each of the acts is regarded as a factual cause of harm
If the cause is possible from multiple people then each person may be held liable (Summers)
Here, the burden of proof shifts to D to prove they each, in turn, didn’t cause the injury.
Note: For Substantial Factor, Possibility is not enough. Need PROBABILITY (MORE THAN LIKELY, 51%)
How a Plaintiff proves proximate cause?
Plaintiff is required to prove that the defendant should have reasonably foreseen, as a risk of her conduct, the general consequences or type of harm suffered. NOT manner or extent of the harm!
Note: For intentional torts, the scope of liability is broader because it's intentional. You did it for the purpose of doing it or substantial certainty.
Eggshell Skull Doctrine - ALL STATES
Exception to the Rule: This rule is taken regardless of the underlying test for proximate cause.
When an actor’s tortious conduct causes harm to a person (bodily or mental) that, because of a pre-existing physical or mental condition or other characteristics of the person, is of greater magnitude or different type than might reasonably be expected, the actor is nevertheless subject to liability for all such harm to a person if it is the general type of harm that is foreseeable.
If D’s negligence causes harm to P, D is liable for any additional unforeseen physical consequences, provided these do not stem from intervening causes so unlikely they would supersede D’s liability.
Intention Infliction of Emotional Distress (nontransferrab
The legally protected interest is mental tranquility against SEVERE Emotional Distress
Intent Necessary: Acts with the purpose of causing severe emotional harm or acts knowing it is SubCert (Can also be reckless!!!)
Privilege:
Damages: Nominal, punitive w/ finding of extraordinarily evil motive
Self-Defense
Restat 2d of Torts, § 63
(1) An actor is privileged to use reasonable force, not intended or likely to cause death or serious bodily harm, to defend himself against unprivileged harmful or offensive contact or other bodily harm which he reasonably believes that another is about to inflict intentionally upon him.
(2) Self-defense is privileged under the conditions stated in Subsection (1), although the actor correctly or reasonably believes that he can avoid the necessity of so defending himself,
(a) by retreating or otherwise giving up a right or privilege, or
(b) by complying with a command with which the actor is under no duty to comply or which the other is not privileged to enforce by the means threatened.
Emergency Doctrine
Emergency doctrine = what a reasonable man would do in an emergency. Majority Rule!
Emergencies = sudden and unforeseen.
If a person MAKES the emergency situation, they cannot claim emergency. (The negligent conduct that brought about the emergency does not excuse behavior.)
Difference of (Sudden) Emergency Doctrine and Sudden onset of an illness is different because Emergency doctrine is a CHOICE
For physical incapacitation
Loss of Chance
When a doctor misdiagnoses a patient’s condition, delaying treatment and it shows the chance of survival was reduced. Courts will find the doctor liable. Loss of chance is seen as an injury in itself.
Since this is new, Court says you need to prove
P must show 51% probability that D’s conduct caused the injury or premature death
P’s family may recover damages based only on damages caused directly by premature death, such as loss of earnings or additional medical expenses etc.
Under the preponderance of evidence standard, P needs to introduce evidence that proper care would more likely than not have cured or improved medical condition.
Usually this is done through an expert witness
As long as there is evidence that “increased risk” = “substantial factor in bringing
about substantial harm.”
Majority Opinion = Injury Based Analytical Approach
Intervening Cause
As long as it’s reasonably foreseeable, will not absolve D of liability (as long as not superseding)
Must be independent and not set in motion by the original negligence
Normal and foreseeable act that occurs after actor’s negligent act or omission
Causal connection not severed if intervening act is normal and foreseeable
D is not liable for intervening malicious acts of a third-party that aren’t reasonably foreseeable