Torts: Intentional Torts

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****INTENT****

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Intent is satisfied if the defendant desired the consequences of his actions or was substantially certain that they would occur.

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Transferred Intent

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Historically, the transferred intent doctrine has been applied to 5 intentional torts: battery, assault, false imprisonment, trespass to chattel, and trespass to land. Under transferred intent, if the defendant intended any of these five torts, but his acts, instead or in addition, result in any of the other five intentional torts, the defendant is liable, even though he did not intend the other tort.

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Mistake Doctrine

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Under the mistake doctrine, if the defendant intends to do acts which would constitute a tort, it is no defense that the defendant mistakes, even reasonably, the identity of the person or property he acts upon.

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Insanity and Infancy

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Neither insanity nor infancy are defenses to intentional torts. However, if the defendant is extremely young, he may be incapable of possessing the requisite intent.

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****BATTERY****

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Battery is the intentional infliction of harmful or offensive contact with the victim's person. ba

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Harmful or Offensive Contact

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Battery encompasses either harmful or offensive contact. Even if the contact is not harmful, it is tortuous if it is offensive. A contact is offensive if a reasonable person under the circumstances of the victim would find the particular contact offensive. What the reasonable person would find offensive varies greatly with the circumstances. Often, a prior course of conduct between the parties indicates that they accept contact that would ordinarily be offensive.

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The Contact Requirement

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The defendant need not actually touch the plaintiff at all, or even be present at the time of the contact, to commit a battery. The contact requirement has also been extended to include objects intimately associated with the victim's body, such as a lapel or a cane.

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****ASSAULT*****

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An actor is liable for assault when he intentionally causes the victim's reasonable apprehension of immediate harmful or offensive contact. Unlike many courts, the Restatement omits the requirement that the apprehension be "reasonable."

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Apprehension

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For assault to be actionable, the victim must perceive that harmful or offensive contact is about to happen to him. If the victim is attacked from behind or while sleeping, there is no apprehension prior to contact, and consequently no assault.

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Fear vs. Apprehension

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Apprehension means the anticipation of a blow, rather than fright. Assault protects not only against the fear of unwanted contact, but also against the mere expectation or anticipation of one.

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Imminence

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For assault to be actionable, the victim's apprehension must be of imminent harmful or offensive contact.

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Conditional Threats

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Comments which negate the intent to cause harmful or offensive contact (e.g., "if you weren't an old man, I would knock you senseless"), do not constitute an assault, since the requisite intent is missing. Some threats, however, will constitute an assault even if they are conditional (e.g., "if you don't go to bed with me, I will knock you senseless.").

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****FALSE IMPRISONMENT****

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An actor is liable for false imprisonment where he unlawfully acts to intentionally cause confinement or restraint of the victim within a bounded area. It is generally held that the victim must be aware of the confinement at the time of the restraint.

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The Bounded Area

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The victim must be confined within an area bounded in all directions. It is not false imprisonment if the victim is free to proceed in any direction, even though he is prevented from going in the direction he wants. The bounded area can, however, be very large, even an entire city.

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Force or Threat of Immediate Force

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Force or threat of immediate force can also be used to restrain the victim. The force may be directed at the victim, her family, companions, or property. The use of threats of economic retaliation or termination of employment to coerce a victim to remain does not constitute false imprisonment, however.

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****INTENTIONAL INFLICTION OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS****

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An actor is liable for intentional infliction of emotional distress when the actor, by extreme and outrageous conduct, intentionally causes the victim severe mental distress.

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Extreme and Outrageous Conduct

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The Restatement defines extreme and outrageous conduct as behavior "which is beyond all possible bounds of decency and which is to be regarded as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community."

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Sexual Harassment and Racial Epithets

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Isolated propositions or attempts at seduction have traditionally not been actionable. Nor, usually, has liability been imposed based solely on racial slurs. However, courts have been more likely to recognize liability where a pattern of harassment is severe and ongoing.

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Intent OR Reckless Behavior

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For recovery under IIED, the plaintiff must prove that the defendant intended to cause severe emotional distress OR acted with reckless disregard as to whether the victim would suffer severe emotional distress. Although characterized as an intentional tort, either intent OR recklessness will suffice for liability.

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Severe Mental Distress

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IIED requires proof that the victim suffered severe emotional distress. Mild distress will not suffice. Initially, physical manifestations of severe distress were required, but most jurisdictions no longer require physical manifestations for the intentional tort.

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IIED- Third Party Recovery

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Courts have traditionally awarded a third-party victim recovery under IIED only if, in addition to proving the elements of the tort, she is: (1) a close relative of the primary victim; (2) present at the scene of the outrageous conduct; and (3) the defendant knows the close relative is present. Non-relatives who satisfy the elements of the tort can also recover if they are present AND they suffer physical manifestations of the distress.