CHAPTER 7
INTENTIONAL TORTS
Intentional Torts
Topics covered:
A. Intent
B. Harm to the Person
C. Harm to the Right of Dignity
D. Harm to Property
E. Harm to Economic Interests
F. Defenses to Intentional Torts
Intentional Torts
All forms of civil liability are either
(1) voluntarily assumed- contract, or
(2) involuntarily assumed- law.
Tort liability is imposed by law.
Intentional Torts
Function:
It gives people redress from civil wrongs or injuries to their
person, property and economic interests.
Objectives:
i. to compensate persons who sustain harm or loss resulting
from another’s conduct
ii. to place the cost of that compensation only on those parties
who should bear it and
iii. to prevent future harms and losses.
The law of torts therefore re-allocates losses caused by human
misconduct.
Intentional Torts
Examples:
➢ assault and battery
➢ automobile accidents
➢ professional malpractice
➢ products liability
Intentional Torts
Tort is committed if:
1. a duty owed by one person to another
2. is breached and
3. proximately causes
4. injury or damage to the owner of a legally
protected interest
Tort Law and Criminal Law mix
An assault and battery is committed by Brandon against Diana.
For the commission of this crime, the State (government) may
take appropriate action against Brandon. In addition, however,
Brandon has violated Diana’s right to be secure in her person
and so has committed a tort against Diana, who may,
regardless of the criminal action by the State against Brandon,
bring a civil action against Brandon for damages.
On the other hand, an act may be criminal without being
tortious, and by the same token, an act may be a tort but not
a crime.
Purpose and Damages
The injured party (Plaintiff) sues to recover compensation for the injury
sustained as a result of the defendant’s wrongful conduct. Tort law’s
purpose is to compensate the injured party (Plaintiff), not to punish the
wrongdoer (Defendant).
However, courts may award punitive or exemplary damages, which are
damages over and above the amount necessary to compensate the
plaintiff. In cases in which the defendant’s tortious conduct has been
intentional reckless and outrageous, exhibiting “malice” or a fraudulent
or evil motive, courts permit a jury to award punitive damages.
The allowance of punitive damages is designed to deter the defendant
and others from similar conduct by punishing and making an example
of the defendant.
A. Intent
What is intent?
“[a] person acts with the intent to produce a
consequence if: (a) the person acts with the purpose
of producing that consequence; or (b) the person acts
knowing that the consequence is substantially certain
to result.”
A hostile or evil motive is not required. Either the actor
desires to cause the consequences of his act or that
he believes that those consequences are substantially
certain to result from it.
Intent
Does defendant Yes
desire to cause
consequences?
No Intent
Does defendant believe
consequences are
substantially certain to
Yes
result?
No
No Intent
B. Harm to the Person
4 “Freedoms”
✓ Freedom from bodily contact (battery)
✓ Freedom from apprehension (assault)
✓ Freedom from confinement (false imprisonment)
✓Freedom from mental distress (infliction of emotional
distress).
B. Harm to the Person
Compensation
The injured party is entitled to recover damages for
bodily harm, emotional distress, loss or impairment of
earning capacity, and reasonable medical expenses
as well as for harm the tortious conduct caused to
property or business.
B. Harm to the Person
Torts
Definitions, Basic Elements, Examples
(pages 126-127)
B. Harm to the Person
Basic Elements
Battery- Awareness not required. Doctrine of transferred intent
Assault- Awareness is required. Doctrine of transferred intent
False imprisonment- Awareness is generally required. If there is
a reasonable alternative exit, then no false imprisonment.
Infliction of emotional distress- Recklessness
C. Harm to the Right of Dignity
Defamation
Torts: Invasion of Privacy
Misuse of Legal Procedure
C. Harm to the Right of Dignity
1. Defamation
Definition:
The tort of defamation is a false communication that injures a
person’s reputation by disgracing him and diminishing the respect
in which he is held.
Example:
The publication of a false statement that a person had committed a
crime or had a loathsome disease. In the case of Beckman v. Dunn,
the court stated, “A communication is defamatory if it tends to harm
the reputation of another so as to lower him in the estimation of
the community or deter third persons from associating or dealing
with him, and necessarily involves the idea of disgrace.”
C. Harm to the Right of Dignity
1. Defamation
Categories:
Libel Defamatory communication handwritten,
typewritten, printed, pictorial or in another
medium, e.g. a television or radio
broadcast.
Slander Defamatory communication spoken or oral.
C. Harm to the Right of Dignity
2. Invasion of Privacy
Definition:
The invasion of a person’s right to privacy actually consists of
four distinct torts: (1) appropriation of a person’s name or
likeness, (2) unreasonable intrusion upon the seclusion of
another, (3) unreasonable public disclosure of private facts, or
(4) unreasonable publicity that places another in a false light in
the public eye.
C. Harm to the Right of Dignity
2. Invasion of Privacy
Example:
Invasion of another’s right of privacy in a manner entailing two
or more of these related torts.
Brandon forces his way into Carl’s hospital room, takes a
photograph of Carl, and publishes it to promote Brandon’s
cure for Carl’s illness along with false statements about Carl
that a reasonable person would consider highly objectionable.
Carl would be entitled to recover on any or all of the four torts
comprising invasion of privacy.
C. Harm to the Right of Dignity
3. Misuse of Legal Procedure
Definition:
Three torts comprise the misuse of legal procedure:
a. malicious prosecution
b. wrongful civil proceedings
c. abuse of process.
Each protects an individual from being subjected to
unjustifiable litigation.
D. Harm to Property
Torts:
❑ Trespass to real property
❑ Nuisance
❑ Trespass to personal property
❑ Conversion
D. Harm to Property
Two types of Property
Real Property
Personal Property
D. Harm to Property
Real Property
Real property is land and anything attached to it, such as
buildings, trees, and minerals.
The law protects the possessor’s rights to the exclusive use and
quiet enjoyment of the land.
Damages for harm to land include compensation for the
resulting diminution in the value of the land, the loss of use of
the land, and the discomfort caused to the possessor of the
land.
D. Harm to Property
Personal Property
Personal property, or chattel, is any type of property other
than an interest in land. The law protects a number of
interests in the possession of personal property, including
an interest in the property’s physical condition and
usability, an interest in the retention of possession and an
interest in its availability for future use.
D. Harm to Property
Trespass to real property
One is subject to liability to another for trespass if he intentionally
a) enters land in the possession of the other, or causes a thing or a third
person to do so, or
(b) remains on the land, or
(c) fails to remove from the land a thing which he is under a duty to
remove.
...irrespective of whether he thereby causes harm to any legally
protected interest of the other
D. Harm to Property
Nuisance
A nuisance is a non-trespassory invasion of another’s interest
in the private use and enjoyment of land.
Example:
The emission of unpleasant odours, smoke, dust, or gas, as well
as the pollution of a stream, a pond, or an underground water
supply.
D. Harm to Property
Trespass to personal property
The tort of trespass to personal property consists of the intentional
dispossession or unauthorized use of the personal property of another.
Liability is limited to instances in which the trespasser
i. dispossesses the other of the property
ii. substantially impairs the condition, quality, or value of the property
iii. deprives the possessor of the use of the property for a substantial
time; or
iv. causes harm to the possessor or to some person or thing in which
the possessor has a legally protected interest.
D. Harm to Property
Conversion
An intentional exercise of dominion or control over another’s personal
property that so seriously interferes with the other’s right of control as to
justly require the payment of full value for the property.
Conversion may consist of the intentional destruction of personal
property or the use of property in an unauthorized manner.
E. Harm to Economic Interest
Meaning
Economic or pecuniary interests include a person’s existing and
prospective contractual relations, a person’s business reputation, a
person’s name and likeness and a person’s freedom from deception.
Torts involved:
(1) interference with contractual relations
(2) disparagement
(3) fraudulent misrepresentation.
Intentional Torts
Interest Protected Tort
Person
Freedom from contact Battery
Freedom from apprehension Assault
Freedom of movement False imprisonment
Freedom from distress Infliction of emotional distress
Dignity
Reputation Defamation
Privacy Appropriation
Intrusion
Public disclosure of private facts
Freedom from wrongful legal actions False light
Misuse of legal procedure
Property
Real Trespass
Nuisance
Personal Trespass
Conversion
Economic
Contracts Interference with contractual rights
Goodwill Disparagement
Freedom from deception Fraudulent misrepresentation
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F. Defenses to Intentional Torts
❖Consent
❖Privilege
F. Defenses to Intentional Torts
Consent
If one consents to conduct resulting in damage or harm to his own person,
dignity, property, or economic interests, no liability will generally attach to the
intentional infliction of injury. Consent, which signifies that one is willing for
an act to occur, negates the wrongfulness of the act.
A person may manifest consent expressly or impliedly, by words or by
conduct.
Consent must be given by an individual with capacity to do so. Consent given
by a minor, a mental incompetent, or an intoxicated individual is invalid if he
is not capable of appreciating the nature, extent, or probable consequences
of the conduct to which he has consented. Consent is not effective if given
under duress, by which one constrains another’s will by compelling that other
to give consent unwillingly.
F. Defenses to Intentional Torts
Privilege
A person who would otherwise be liable for a tort is not liable if he acts
pursuant to and within the limits of a privilege.
EXAMPLE:
Self-defence
An individual is entitled to injure another person without the other’s
consent. An individual can protect himself against tortious interference.
By virtue of this privilege, an individual may inflict or impose what would
otherwise constitute battery, assault, or false imprisonment.