Module 1: Intentional Torts & Defenses

Battery requires intent to cause a harmful or offensive contact, and an actual harmful or offensive contact results — no injury required, just an unconsented contact a reasonable person would find offensive. Assault instead protects against the apprehension of imminent harmful or offensive contact — no actual touching required, just a reasonable, imminent apprehension that it’s about to happen.

Garratt v. Dailey is the classic case defining what “intent” actually means here, and it’s worth knowing precisely because the defendant was five years old. A young boy pulled a chair out from under an elderly woman just as she began to sit down; he didn’t want her to fall, but the court held battery’s intent element is satisfied if the defendant knew, with substantial certainty, that the contact (her falling onto the ground) would result from the act — not just outright desire to cause harm. On remand, the trial court found the boy did have that knowledge, since he moved the chair specifically as she was lowering herself into it.

Example. Peter, angry at John, shoves him hard from behind with no warning — battery, an unconsented offensive contact, even though Peter never saw it coming and so never experienced any apprehension. Now compare: Peter instead winds up to throw a punch in full view of John, who sees it coming and flinches in fear, but Peter is stopped before actually landing the blow — assault, since John reasonably apprehended imminent contact, even though no contact ever actually occurred.

False imprisonment requires an intentional act confining the plaintiff within fixed boundaries, the plaintiff’s awareness of the confinement, and no legal justification for it. Confinement can be established through physical barriers, force, or credible threats — not just literal locked doors.

Whittaker v. Sanford shows confinement without a single locked door anywhere. A woman living aboard a yacht owned by a religious sect’s leader wanted to leave the group; she was told she was free to go — but the boat, the only practical way ashore, was repeatedly not made available to actually take her. The court held this was still false imprisonment: confinement can come from a credible practical barrier (no other way off a boat anchored offshore) just as much as from a locked room, and telling someone they’re “free to leave” while withholding the only real means of leaving doesn’t defeat the claim.

Example. John physically blocks the only exit from a room and tells Peter he cannot leave, with no legal basis for doing so — false imprisonment, since Peter is intentionally confined within fixed boundaries and aware of it. Now compare: John simply asks Peter to stay and talk, with the door unlocked and unblocked the whole time — no false imprisonment, since Peter was never actually confined at all, whatever John may have said.

IIED sets a genuinely high bar: extreme and outrageous conduct — going beyond all bounds of decency, not merely rude or insulting — done intentionally or recklessly, that actually causes severe emotional distress, not merely upset feelings.

State Rubbish Collectors Association v. Siliznoff is the real California case that first recognized this as an independent tort, standing on its own rather than as an add-on to some other physical claim. A trade association, angry that Siliznoff was collecting rubbish in territory it considered its members’, threatened him with violence and property destruction until he signed over money he didn’t actually owe — genuine physical harm, courts had already recognized; what this case newly recognized was that outrageous conduct causing severe distress alone, with no accompanying physical tort at all, is itself enough to support liability.

Example. John, knowing Peter has a severe, documented phobia of a specific thing, deliberately and repeatedly confronts Peter with it purely to torment him, causing Peter genuine, severe psychological harm — likely extreme and outrageous conduct, satisfying IIED. Now compare: John is simply rude and insults Peter’s cooking at a dinner party — unpleasant, but nowhere near IIED’s demanding “extreme and outrageous” threshold.

Trespass to land is an intentional physical intrusion onto another’s land without permission — actual damage isn’t required. Trespass to chattels is a lesser interference with someone’s personal property (dispossession or intermeddling), with damages limited to the actual harm caused.

Jacque v. Steenberg Homes shows how seriously the “no actual damage required” principle for trespass to land is really taken. A mobile home company, after being refused permission, deliberately drove a mobile home across a couple’s snow-covered field anyway rather than take a longer legal route — causing essentially no measurable property damage at all. Wisconsin’s highest court upheld a large punitive damages award on top of just $1 in nominal compensatory damages, reasoning that the right to exclude others from one’s land is itself a real, independently protected interest — a landowner doesn’t need to prove a dollar of harm for a deliberate trespass to be taken seriously by the law.

Example. John walks across Peter’s lawn without permission to take a shortcut, causing no actual damage at all — still trespass to land, since permission (not damage) is what matters. Now compare: John borrows Peter’s bicycle without asking and returns it slightly scratched a few hours later — trespass to chattels, with damages limited to the cost of the scratch, not the bike’s full value.

Conversion is an interference with personal property serious enough that the defendant is essentially forced to pay full value, as if they bought it — the far end of the same spectrum trespass to chattels sits on.

Pearson v. Dodd marks a real, important limit on what conversion actually protects. A U.S. Senator’s former aides secretly copied documents from his files and leaked their contents to newspaper columnists — the physical papers themselves were always returned, untouched and undamaged. The court held there was no conversion: what was really taken was the information the documents contained, not the paper itself, and conversion protects interference with tangible property, not the unauthorized use of ideas or information (which might support other claims, like breach of confidence, but not this one). Conversion tracks the physical thing, not what it happens to say.

Example. John takes Peter’s bicycle without asking and sells it to a stranger, or uses it as his own for six months straight — conversion, since the interference is serious and prolonged enough that John essentially owes Peter the bike’s full value, not just repair costs for a scratch.

Actual consent — express, or implied from the circumstances (like voluntarily playing a contact sport) — generally negates what would otherwise be an intentional tort, though consent obtained by fraud about an essential fact, or exceeded in scope, may not hold up.

Mohr v. Williams is the classic case testing consent’s real boundaries in a medical setting. A patient consented to surgery on her right ear; once she was under anesthesia, the surgeon discovered her left ear was actually the more seriously diseased one and operated on that ear instead, in what he judged her best medical interest. The court held this was still battery, despite the good intentions and the arguably superior medical outcome: consent to one specific procedure doesn’t automatically extend to a different one, however closely related or well-intentioned, particularly where — as with a conscious ear surgery — there was no genuine emergency preventing the surgeon from simply waking her and asking first.

Example. Peter voluntarily joins a recreational boxing match, agreeing to absorb reasonable, rule-following punches — no battery for contact within the sport’s normal scope. Now compare: John, Peter’s opponent, instead deliberately head-butts Peter outside any rule of the sport — this exceeds the scope of what Peter actually consented to, and battery liability can still attach.

Self-defense requires a reasonable belief in imminent unlawful force and a proportional response. Defense of others mirrors this for protecting a third party. Public necessity (protecting the community) is a complete defense to trespass; private necessity (protecting one’s own interest) only excuses the trespass itself — actual damage must still be paid for.

Vincent v. Lake Erie Transportation Co. is the real case behind that private-necessity damage rule. A ship owner, with the dock owner’s permission, moored his steamship at a dock to unload cargo — a sudden, violent storm then made it far too dangerous to leave, so the crew kept the ship deliberately tied to the dock all night, repeatedly re-mooring as lines broke, to save the ship. The storm repeatedly slammed the ship into the dock, causing real damage. The court held the ship owner was privileged to stay moored (private necessity — it was reasonable to prioritize the ship and crew’s safety) but still had to pay for the dock damage: the privilege excuses what would otherwise be a trespass, it doesn’t make the resulting harm the dock owner’s to simply absorb for free.

Example. Seeing a wildfire threatening the whole neighborhood, Peter tears down a fence on John’s land to create a firebreak protecting the entire block — public necessity, complete immunity, nothing owed to John. Now compare: Peter instead does the exact same thing purely to protect his own house specifically, with no broader community benefit in mind — private necessity instead; the trespass is still privileged, but Peter still owes John for the actual damage to the fence.