Intentional Torts Involving Personal Injury

In general

1. Tortious conduct—voluntary act or failure to act

2. Requisite mental state—purposeful (or reckless for intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED)), or defendant knows consequence is substantially certain

3. Causation—resulting harm legally (i.e., factually and proximately) caused by defendant’s conduct

• Second Restatement elements: act, intent, causation

Battery

Defendant intends to cause contact with plaintiff’s person (or anything connected to plaintiff’s person)

• Indirect contact counts

• D’s conduct must be voluntary be harmful or offensive

• Transferred intent applies

• Single-intent rule (majority rule)—defendant may be liable if defendant (1) intends to bring about contact; defendant need not intend (2) that contact be harmful or offensive

  • DE Point of Law—DE follows majority rule

• Double-intent rule (minority rule)—defendant must (1) intend to bring about contact and (2) intend that contact be harmful or offensive

Contact causes bodily harm or is offensive to plaintiff

• Harmful—physical injury, illness, disease, impairment, death

• Offensive—reasonable person standard (objective), or when defendant knows contact is highly offensive to plaintiff’s sense of personal dignity

  • DE Distinction—for contact to be offensive, it must offend reasonable sense of personal dignity (objective standard)

Assault

—defendant intends to cause plaintiff to anticipate imminent harmful or offensive contact, and defendant’s affirmative conduct causes plaintiff to anticipate contact

1. Anticipated contact—no actual contact required; plaintiff must be aware of defendant’s acts; anticipated contact must be harmful or offensive

• Second Restatement uses “apprehend”

• DE Point of Law—plaintiff’s anticipation must be reasonable (objective standard)

2. Imminence—threats of future harm or threats made by defendant who is physically too far away do not usually satisfy this requirement

3. Intent—subject to transferred intent

IIED

Intent or recklessness

• Defendant, by extreme and outrageous conduct, intentionally or recklessly causes plaintiff severe emotional distress

• Transferred intent does not apply to IIED when defendant intended to commit different intentional tort (e.g., battery) against different victim (instead governed by bystander rule for third-party victims)

• Transferred intent may apply to IIED if, instead of harming intended person,defendant’s extreme and outrageous conduct harms another

• Causation—factual-cause test

• Damages—severe emotional distress (beyond reasonable person’s endurance, or defendant knows of plaintiff’s heightened sensitivity)

Extreme and outrageous conduct by defendant (beyond human decency, outrageous)

• DE Point of Law—no liability for mere insults, indignities, threats, and annoyances unless parties have special relationship

Public figures and concerns

—public figures must show falsity and actual malice; private plaintiff cannot recover if issue was of public concern

Emotional harm caused by harm to third party

—distresses member of victim’s immediate family—with or without resulting bodily injury—or other bystander resulting in bodily injury

• DE Point of Law—intentionally or recklessly causes severe emotional distress to (1) member of victim’s immediate family who is present at the time or (2) any other person who is present, if distress results in bodily harm

False imprisonment

1. Defendant intends to confine another in limited area, defendant’s conduct causes plaintiff’s confinement or defendant fails to release plaintiff from confinement despite duty to do so, and plaintiff is conscious of confinement

• Intent—purposeful act or knowing confinement is substantially certain to result

Confinement

—limited area or when plaintiff is compelled to move in highly restricted way (e.g., physical barriers or force, threats, invalid use of legal authority, duress, or failure to provide means of escape)

• DE Point of Law—reasonable means of escape is one with no risk of harm to self or property

• Length of confinement—immaterial except as to amount of damages

Damages—majority

—actual damages unnecessary, plaintiff can recover nominal and possible punitive damages; minority: actual damages necessary only if plaintiff was unaware of confinement