Intentional Torts - Study Questions

General Information

Work through all the study guides on the WWW.

For each case posted on the WWW, know the name and factual basis for the case (what went on), the parties, and the important points of law the case illustrates.

Intentional Torts

What are the two ways to show intent?

What are the five traditional trespass torts?

Why do we care whether a tort is a trespass tort?

What is the mistake doctrine as it applies to property?

What is the mistake doctrine as it applies to people?

When is infancy a defense to intentional torts?

When is insanity a defense to intentional torts?

When can the plaintiff plead an intentional tort and negligence in the alternative and when is this prohibited?

Battery

The Restatement elements for battery:

s 13. BATTERY: HARMFUL CONTACT
An actor is subject to liability to another for battery if
(a) he acts intending to cause a harmful or offensive contact with the person of the other or a third person, or an imminent apprehension of such a contact, and
(b) a harmful contact with the person of the other directly or indirectly results.

Does this mean that as long as the defendant thinks the plaintiff will enjoy the contact that there is no tort?

Whose perspective is used to judge whether the contact is harmful or offensive?

What is the MAI for battery?

Assault

The Restatement elements for assault:

s 21. ASSAULT
(1) An actor is subject to liability to another for assault if
(a) he acts intending to cause a harmful or offensive contact with the person of the other or a third person, or an imminent apprehension of such a contact, and
(b) the other is thereby put in such imminent apprehension.
(2) An action which is not done with the intention stated in Subsection (1, a) does not make the actor liable to the other for an apprehension caused thereby although the act involves an unreasonable risk of causing it and, therefore, would be negligent or reckless if the risk threatened bodily harm.

What is the MAI for assault?

False Imprisonment

What are the Restatement elements for false imprisonment? (Bramon case)

What is the MAI for false imprisonment?

Trespass To Chattel And Conversion

What is a chattel?

What are the elements of trespass to chattels from the book?

Must plaintiff prove bad faith?

How does the mistake doctrine apply?

Does transferred intent apply?

What are the elements of conversion from the book?

How do conversion and trespass to chattels differ?

Can both apply in the same case and why?

Intentional Infliction Of Mental Distress

What are the elements?

What are the ways to show extreme and outrageous conduct?

What are power relationships and how do they affect IIMD?

What are the Constitutional limits on IIMD?

Does transferred intent apply?

When can third parties recovery?

What is the exception for innkeepers, common carriers, and other public utilities?

Privileges To Intentional Torts

What is implied consent?

What is consent by law?

Your client is brought into the emergency room with serious injuries. He is unconscious and the physicians treat him. He has religious objections to medical treatment, but his Christian Science bracelet was lost in the accident. What are the doc's defenses to battery?

What are the five ways that what consent can be invalidated?

What is self-defense and what are its limits?

What is defense of others and what are its limits?

Does the Restatement allow mistake for defense of others?

Your client was injured by a booby trap while stealing from an uninhabited house. Can he sue and why?

Same facts as above, but the homeowner was asleep in the back bedroom when your client was injured. The homeowner never knew your client was in the house. What are the homeowner's defenses to a battery claim?

Home owner wakes after hearing a noise. She yells out, "Is someone there?" The burglar hears her, grabs her TV, and runs from the house. The homeowner gets her gun and investigates the noise. She sees the burglar running away with the TV. He is two houses away down the street, but she takes a shot anyway and hits him. What are her defenses to a battery claim and what are the plaintiff's rebuttals?

What is the necessity defense?

Does necessity allow a private party to use someone else's property for free?