Trespass to Person

Class Reps and Facebook Page

• Class reps are Steph and Regan.
• Class reps have set up a Facebook page for the class.
• The link is available in the module on Nuku.
• Facebook pages run by students are independent of the university and not sanctioned by the instructor.
• The instructor does not engage with student social media.

Karakia and Mental Preparation

• The instructor will not start classes with karakia.
• Instead, students are encouraged to engage in whakawatea, which involves:
  • Claiming the space.
  • Clearing the mind.
  • Preparing to focus for 75 minutes.

Cell Phones and Social Media

• Putting away cell phones is highly encouraged to minimize distractions.
• Research suggests that even having a cell phone on the desk can raise anxiety levels and distract from work.
• Turning off social media messaging software on computers is also recommended to maintain focus.

Class Schedule and Office Hours

• Thursday's class will be online.
• The instructor will not have office hours on that Thursday.
• Extra office hours will be scheduled closer to the assessment date.

Conditional Demands and Assault

• Conditional demands: A defendant says, "Hand over your money or I will stab you."
• The defendant cannot claim it's not assault because the victim had the option to comply.
• New Zealand authority: the Police v. Greaves case.
  • Overturns the High Court decision.
  • States that a conditional threat can constitute an assault.
  • The person making the threat is not entitled to do so.
  • The essence of a threat is to intimidate or overcome the will of the person.
  • Example: "Your money or your life" is intimidating and suggests a battery is likely to occur.

Threat of Battery by Another Person

• Scenario: The defendant approaches the plaintiff with friends behind him. The defendant is unarmed but calls out to his friends, "Boys, get your weapons out."
• Queen v. Wilson: This is a threat of battery, even if the battery will be carried out by another person (the defendant's agents).
• The agent doesn't have to be a person; it could be a dog.

Trespass to the Person: Overview

• The class is examining trespass to the person, which includes: battery, assault, and false imprisonment.
• These torts require intention (Bauer v Lanning, Letang v Cooper).
• The old writs talked about direct harm, but the modern rationalization emphasizes the intention to do the action.
• Intention to harm is not required; it's the intention to bring about the contact.
• These torts are actionable per se, meaning they don't require proof of harm.
• Negligence, in contrast, requires harm (physical injury, property damage, or financial harm).
• Aggravating factors (injury, malice, humiliation) can increase damages (Ford v Skinner).

Battery: Definition and Elements

• Definition: An intentional act that brings about a contact with or physical impact on the body of another person without consent.
• Words in definitions are meant to capture concepts broadly and are not rigid.
• Modern rationalization (Lord Goff in Re F): Every person's body is inviolate.
• Absence of consent is an element of the tort.
• Consent includes recklessness (throwing a stick aiming for Paige but hitting Danny).
• Consent can be implied (lying on a massage table).
• Liability requires directness (setting a trap vs. leaving an unguarded hole).

Carve-Outs and Exceptions (Re F)

• Conduct acceptable in everyday life is not a battery.
  • This is context-specific (opera vs. mosh pit).
• Principle of necessity: Consent is not required in emergency situations.
• Lawful authority: Can be relevant in some cases.

Assault: Definition and Elements

• Definition: Intentionally bringing about an anticipation in the mind of another that the defendant will inflict a battery on the plaintiff.
• Assault and battery often occur together (seeing a punch coming, then the punch landing).
• Assault can happen without a battery (threatening with a fist).
• Battery can happen without an assault (hit from behind).
• Assessment is from the perspective of the reasonable plaintiff.
  • Example: It doesn't matter if the gun is not loaded, if the plaintiff doesn't know that, it's still assault.
• Words can negate the imminence of the battery (Tuberville v Savage).
• Conditional threats can be assaults (Police v Greaves).

False Imprisonment: Introduction

• Example: Being required to cross the road due to a sign is generally not false imprisonment if there is a reasonable way out.
• Example: Detouring to avoid someone vaping on the footpath is not false imprisonment, as one has the option of going elsewhere.

Bird v. Jones: Key Principles of False Imprisonment

• Restriction with no reasonable possibility of going another way.
• False imprisonment requires total restraint.
• Total restraint doesn't have to be physical.
• Imprisonment can be "in conception only," achieved through intimidation that makes one reasonably feel unable to leave.
• Inability to go one way with the ability to go another way is not false imprisonment.
• Knowledge of restraint isn't required.
• Lawful authority might justify imprisonment; without it, one is exposed to liability for false imprisonment.

Citizen Arrest Powers and Tort Law

• Expanded citizen arrest powers raise concerns related to tort law.
• If someone is arrested without proper authority, the person affect could be committing the tort of false imprisonment.
• Storekeepers are concerned about their power to restrain people because they risk liability for false imprisonment without lawful authority.

Bird v. Jones: Conflicting Views

• Lord Denman's View:

  • Interference with the plaintiff's liberty is a problem.
  • The plaintiff had the right to go along that part of the bridge.
  • The behavior of the defendant interfered with that liberty.

• Majority View Does Not Prevail:

  • The interpreter dance example (blocking the street) illustrates the issues at stake. Should you be able to sue for false imprisonment?
  • Majority emphasizes that the restraint has to be total.

• The Interference with liberty may not give rise to liability and tort in instances that it is not a total restraint.

• Even a momentary interference is enough.

Identifying Difficult Legal Questions

• Civil law cases that go on appeal usually involve very difficult questions.
• Torn between conflicting views? It means you are thinking hard about the legal rationale.

Definition of False Imprisonment

• The essence of false imprisonment is being made to stay in a particular place by another person.

• Methods to keep a person there: can be physical barriers (such as locks and bars), physical people (guards), or the threat of force or legal processes.

Hood v. Wederll Steel

• Facts:
  • The plaintiff's claim for false imprisonment fails.
  • The plaintiff agreed to work his contracting hours.
  • The defendant asked to be brought up from the line shaft, before his hours had finished.
  • The defendant did not act unlawfully or illegally.
  • Legal Rationale:
    • He agreed to stay down there until the end of his shift.
    • Valenti non fit anduria (the volunteer can't complain or the volunteer is not injured).
    • Workers agreed to be imprisoned until a certain time, no tort of wrong imprisonment.

Critical Analyses

• What is analytically wrong with the Lordship's view?
  • Should Heard and Weddell Steel be followed in New Zealand?
  • Problems identified in the case:
    • It infringes the principle of the liberty of the subject, which is given expression to through ancient torts.
    • If you hold somebody against their will and don't have legal authority, it is false imprisonment.
    • Analysis indicates that it implies if its ok for employers to imprison you until you fulfill your side of the bargain.
    • The board ships are saying we're sticking to our side of the bargain, you need to stick to your side of the bargain and we're going to imprison you.
    • With the example, it would be that based on contractual rights I can hold Pippa there shaking her hand. There's something creepy about that, and lots of different ways, there's something creepy about that because it's using imprisonment battery to enforce a contractual obligation.
  • Contract Negates Wrong Imprisonment
    • Why is it important to ask the question: Does this leave the employer without any recourse?
    • No, the employer could sue for damages. It's important to ask and come up with a counter response.

Robinson and Balmain New Ferry

• Lord Haldane uses an earlier Privy Council decision as authority based on Robinson in Balmain New Ferry.
• It was not false imprisonment to uphold a man to the conditions he had accepted when he goes to the mine.
• Lord Haldane said, he agreed to go onto the jetty, having to pay a penny to exit was part of that agreement.
• Lord Larburn said,
  • Nothing was agreed about leaving the jetty.
  • Before Robinson could leave the jetty. The defendants were entitled to impose a reasonable condition. That's not what Robinson and Valmane Theory said.
• Robinson and Balmagna Theory states the prisoner should be entitled to impose a reasonable, can you think of what this example would be.