Intentional Torts Against People

Intentional torts are divided into two categories:

All intentional torts require:

Exception: There is one exception, but it's not the topic of discussion.

Intent is what separates intentional torts from other torts like negligence.
The plaintiff must show that the defendant intended to cause the prohibited consequence.
The defendant must act with intent to bring about that consequence.
The defendant couldn't just have been clumsy or careless.

An intentional act by the defendant which brings about harmful or offensive contact to a plaintiff's person.
There must be intent on the part of the defendant to bring about the consequence.
The consequence the defendant must intend is a harmful or offensive contact.
Accidentally or even recklessly causing a harmful or offensive contact won't be enough.

Anything that causes injury, pain, or disfigurement.
Examples:
- A punch in the face.
- A hard shove in the back.
- Putting a laxative in someone's food.

Any contact a reasonable person would find objectionable or that would offend their dignity is offensive.
Examples:
- An unwanted kiss.
- Getting spit on.
- Smoke blown in your face.
An offensive contact must offend a reasonable person's sensibilities.
We can look to the norms of society to find out whether a contact is objectively reasonable.
Examples of contacts that aren't actionable:
- Tapping someone on the shoulder to get by.
- Bumping into someone as you board a crowded subway.

If the actor knows that a particular contact is highly offensive to a particular person, that contact is offensive even though it wouldn't offend a reasonable person's sensitivities.
Example: Brielle places a butterfly on Priya as a practical joke, knowing Priya has a peculiar fear of butterflies.

Any part of their body.
Anything that is intimately connected to the plaintiff.
Examples:
- A plaintiff's purse or backpack.
- Cane.
- Flowing scarf.
- Part of those wacky inflatable T Rex costumes.

Causation is usually obvious in a battery claim because the defendant's contact is often made directly against the plaintiff, but causation can also be established indirectly when defendant sets into motion a force that ultimately brings about the harmful or offensive contact.
Example: Booby trapping a house.
- The actor may not have directly poured the tar and dropped the feathers onto the victim, they set into motion the force that created that result.

The intentional creation of reasonable apprehension of an imminent, harmful, or offensive contact.
An act that intentionally places a person in a reasonable apprehension of an about to be battery.
The defendant must intend to place the person in apprehension of an imminent battery.
The doctrine of transferred intent applies to assault as well.

Awareness.
The plaintiff must be placed in an awareness of an incoming battery.
There's no requirement that the plaintiff be fearful or scared.
The plaintiff just needs to be aware that she's about to suffer an immediate harmful or offensive contact.
Assault is intended to compensate the victim for the mental harm they suffered due to their awareness of the about to be battery.
A person is not assaulted when behind their back, an angry classmate throws a book at them but misses.
The plaintiff's apprehension or awareness of the contact must also be reasonable.
A defendant's apparent ability to act is enough even if it is factually impossible to make contact.
Example: Pointing an unloaded gun at someone would certainly cause them to apprehend an immediate harmful contact even if the gun was unloaded, unless the plaintiff knew it was unloaded.

Words alone are not enough to create reasonable apprehension of an imminent contact.
Some sort of overt act by the defendant is necessary.
The overt act doesn't have to be huge such as a clenched fist alongside tough words or a step forward while making a verbal threat.
While words alone cannot create reasonable apprehension, they can negate it.
- Example: If golfer Gary is angry at his golfing buddy, Slow Stan, for continuing to move so slowly and says, Stan, if you weren't my best friend, I'd knock you over the head with this here golf club. There's no reasonable apprehension because Gary acknowledged with his words that he wasn't really gonna hit Stan.
Threats of future contact are also not sufficient because a plaintiff must be placed in apprehension of an immediate contact.
Example: If Dante brandishes an octopus and says to Phoebe, I'm gonna throw this cephalopod right in your face next week, this doesn't amount to an assault, even if it is super weird.

An act or failure to act by a defendant that confines or restrains a plaintiff to a bounded area.
The concept of confinement requires either physical barriers or restraint via physical force directed at the plaintiff or a member of their immediate family.
The defendant must intend to confine or restrain the plaintiff.
It doesn't matter how short the period of confinement is.
Sometimes a threat directed against physical property can amount to confinement like if someone confiscated your car keys and cell phone.
A bounded area means that the plaintiff's freedom of movement is limited in all directions such that there is no reasonable means of escape known to the plaintiff.
Examples:
- A closed room with a locked door.
- A small desert island with ocean all around it.
- Being handcuffed to a railing.
- Wandering 100 miles of desert.
The damages for false imprisonment are intended to compensate the plaintiff for mental anguish, so to recover, the plaintiff must be aware of the confinement.
Example: Locked Sleeping Beauty in her chamber while she dozed, unlocked the chamber, and then planted a big kiss to awaken her, beauty cannot state a claim for false imprisonment.
If the plaintiff suffers some injury as a result of the confinement, she can sue for the damages resulting from the physical injury even if she were not aware of the confinement.

Shopkeepers may detain someone if they have a reasonable belief that there was a theft as long as the detention is done in a reasonable manner.
The shop keeper must use reasonable force in detaining the suspect and keep the confinement limited to a reasonable amount of time.
No deadly force may be used, and the detention may last only long enough for the employees to complete the investigation.
This privilege has been carved out because if shopkeepers weren't allowed to detain someone suspected of shoplifting, then the merchandise and any evidence that proves the theft would be lost, leaving the store without any recourse.