Intentional Torts to Person and Property: every key term you need (+ practice quiz)
25 flashcard terms for Torts Topic 1, written to match the course framework. Study them here, then drill them as interactive flashcards, or test yourself with the 15-question quiz — free, no account needed.
An intentional act by the defendant that causes a harmful or offensive contact with the plaintiff or with something closely connected to the plaintiff, judged without regard to whether physical injury results.
Harmful contact
A contact that causes physical impairment, pain, or bodily damage of any degree; even a slight bruise or aggravation of an existing condition satisfies the harm element of battery.
Offensive contact
A contact that would offend a reasonable sense of personal dignity, measured objectively rather than by the unusual sensitivity of the particular plaintiff, unless the defendant knows of that sensitivity.
Assault
An intentional act placing the plaintiff in reasonable apprehension of an imminent harmful or offensive contact; the plaintiff must perceive the threat, though fear itself is not required.
Imminent apprehension
The threatened contact must appear about to occur without significant delay; threats of future harm, conditional threats the actor may lawfully impose, or distant danger do not satisfy this element.
Words alone rule
Spoken language by itself traditionally cannot create an assault, but words combined with a menacing gesture, or words that give threatening meaning to an ambiguous act, will suffice.
False imprisonment
Intentional confinement of the plaintiff within boundaries fixed by the defendant, by force, threat, physical barrier, or assertion of legal authority, with no reasonable means of escape known to the plaintiff.
Conscious confinement requirement
Most courts require that the plaintiff be aware of the confinement while it occurs, or else be actually harmed by it, so a sleeping or unaware plaintiff usually has no claim.
Intentional infliction of emotional distress
Extreme and outrageous conduct done intentionally or recklessly that causes the plaintiff severe emotional distress; the tort is a gap filler for wrongs the older writs did not reach.
Extreme and outrageous conduct
Behavior going beyond all bounds tolerated in a civilized community; abuse of a position of power, knowledge of a peculiar vulnerability, or repeated harassment can push conduct across the line.
Restatement (Second) sec. 46
The section stating the modern emotional distress tort and its bystander branch, requiring outrageous conduct, intent or recklessness, and severe distress; courts cite it as the standard formulation.
Restatement (Third) approach to intent
Defines intent as acting with the purpose of producing the consequence or with knowledge that the consequence is substantially certain to result, consolidating older and sometimes inconsistent formulations.
Trespass to land
Intentionally entering land possessed by another, causing a thing or third person to enter, remaining after the privilege ends, or failing to remove a thing one is obliged to remove; harm need not be shown.
Trespass to chattels
Intentional interference with another persons personal property by dispossession or by intermeddling, actionable only on proof of actual impairment, deprivation of use, or bodily harm.
Conversion
Intentional exercise of dominion over a chattel so seriously interfering with the owners rights that the actor is justly required to pay the full market value, effectively a forced sale.
Purpose or substantial certainty
The two branches of intent: the actor either desires the result, or knows the result is virtually certain to follow from the conduct, and the law treats that knowledge as equivalent to desire.
Transferred intent
Intent to commit one of the historic trespass writs against one person supplies the intent for a different such tort or a different victim, linking battery, assault, false imprisonment, and the two trespasses.
Single intent rule
The defendant need intend only the contact itself; if that contact turns out to be harmful or offensive, liability follows even though the actor meant no harm and expected none.
Dual intent rule
A minority position requiring that the defendant intend both the contact and that it be harmful or offensive, which shields some children and mentally impaired actors from battery liability.
Vosburg v. Putney
Schoolroom kick case holding a schoolboy liable for unforeseen serious leg injury because the touch was unlawful in that setting; the classic authority for liability far beyond expected consequences.
Garratt v. Dailey
Chair pulling case involving a young child, remanded to determine whether he knew with substantial certainty that the plaintiff would sit where the chair had been; the leading knowledge based intent case.
White v. University of Idaho
Piano teacher touched a students back without permission and caused unexpected serious injury; the court applied a single intent approach and found the intended contact enough.
Extended liability principle
An intentional tortfeasor answers for all consequences flowing from the wrongful act, including unforeseeable and disproportionate physical harm, a rule far broader than in accident based claims.
Mistake doctrine
A good faith and even reasonable mistake about ownership, identity, or the right to act does not excuse an intentional tort, provided the actor intended the act that produced the invasion.
McGuire v. Almy
Held that an institutionalized mentally ill patient who struck her caretaker could be liable, because an insane person capable of forming the required intent is answerable in tort.