Torts Case Brief Summaries (Chapters 1-2)

Vocabulary practice flashcards defining key cases, main points, and prevailing rules covered in Torts Chapters 1 and 2.

Brown v. Kendall

Liability for accidental harm requires fault (negligence or intent)—not strict or absolute liability—where the defendant's underlying act was lawful.

Cohen v. Petty

A driver who suffers a sudden, unforeseeable loss of consciousness is not negligent; liability requires that the incapacity be foreseeable.

Spano v. Perini Corp.

One who engages in blasting (an abnormally dangerous/ultrahazardous activity) is strictly liable for resulting property damage regardless of the care exercised.

Garratt v. Dailey

Intent for battery is satisfied if the defendant knew with substantial certainty that the contact (or a harmful/offensive touching) would result; purpose to harm is not required.

Wagner v. State

Provides the framework for assessing intent and liability of persons with mental illness or incapacity for intentional torts.

McGuire v. Almy

An insane person who is capable of forming the intent to strike and injure another may be held liable for battery.

Talmage v. Smith

Established the doctrine of transferred intent: intent to commit a tort against one person transfers to make the defendant liable for the tort actually committed against another.

Ranson v. Kitner

A good-faith, reasonable mistake is not a defense to an intentional tort (such as trespass to chattels or conversion); intent to do the act, not to do wrong, is what matters.

Wallace v. Rosen

Ordinary, non-hostile contact incidental to a crowded environment is not offensive contact; battery requires contact that a reasonable person would find harmful or offensive.

Fisher v. Carrousel Motor Hotel, Inc.

Battery extends to offensive contact with anything so closely identified with the plaintiff's body that contact with it is contact with the person; physical injury is not required.

I de S et ux. v. W de S

Assault does not require actual physical contact—only an act creating a reasonable apprehension of imminent harmful or offensive contact.

Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Hill

Assault requires apparent present ability to carry out the threatened contact; liability turns on whether the plaintiff reasonably believed the defendant could act on the threat immediately.

Big Town Nursing Home, Inc. v. Newman

False imprisonment can arise from confinement asserted under color of authority the defendant does not actually possess; the plaintiff need not physically resist if resistance would be futile.

Parvi v. City of Kingston

False imprisonment requires that the plaintiff was conscious of the confinement at the time (or was harmed by it); intoxication does not by itself preclude that awareness.

Hardy v. LaBelle's Distributing Co.

No false imprisonment where the plaintiff remained voluntarily (e.g., to clear her name); actual or threatened physical restraint against the plaintiff's will is required.

Enright v. Groves

An arrest is unlawful—and supports false imprisonment—where the officer lacks legal authority to arrest for the offense actually at issue, regardless of good faith.

State Rubbish Collectors Ass'n v. Siliznoff

Recognized intentional infliction of emotional distress as an independent tort: extreme and outrageous conduct intended (or reckless as to whether) to cause severe emotional distress is actionable without physical impact or injury.

Slocum v. Food Fair Stores of Florida

Mere insults or rude language, without more, are not 'extreme and outrageous'; IIED requires conduct that goes beyond all possible bounds of decency.

Harris v. Jones

Sets out the elements of IIED (intentional/reckless conduct, extreme and outrageous, causation, severe distress) and requires the resulting emotional distress itself to be severe, not merely the conduct offensive.

Taylor v. Vallelunga

A bystander cannot recover for IIED unless the defendant knew the bystander was present and acted with intent (or recklessness) as to causing that bystander distress.

Dougherty v. Stepp

Trespass to land is complete upon unauthorized entry alone; actual physical damage to the property is not required for liability.

Herrin v. Sutherland

Trespass to land extends to unauthorized invasions of the airspace above the property, not just the surface.

Rogers v. Board of Road Com'rs for Kent County

Once a limited privilege/license to be on land expires or is exceeded, continued presence of the object/entry becomes a trespass, even though the initial placement was authorized.

Glidden v. Szybiak

Trespass to chattels requires actual dispossession of, or substantial/measurable harm to, the chattel or the possessor's interest; unlike trespass to land, trivial interference is not automatically actionable.

CompuServe Inc. v. Cyber Promotions, Inc.

Sending electronic communications that impose a measurable burden on another's computer systems can constitute trespass to chattels, extending the doctrine to interference with intangible/electronic property causing real harm.

Pearson v. Dodd

Conversion requires a serious, substantial interference with the owner's right to control the property (e.g., dispossession); merely copying documents without depriving the owner of their use is not conversion.

Halberstam v. Welch

One who knowingly gives substantial assistance or encouragement to another's tortious conduct can be held jointly and severally liable under a civil aiding-and-abetting/concert-of-action theory, even without directly committing the underlying tort.