Chapter 8

Torts
 Classification of Torts
oIntentional
• An intentional tort is an action performed by an individual with
a deliberate intent to harm another person or another person's
property. If John is angry with his boss for refusing to raise his
salary and slashes the tires of his boss' car in retaliation, this is an
intentional tort and John is responsible for damages.
o Negligence
• In your daily life, it can often be easy to become careless. Daily
commutes to work, running late to appointments and stress at home
preoccupying your mind can take a toll on your attention to detail.
Unfortunately, acts of carelessness can sometimes lead to someone
else getting hurt or injured. In the case of a personal injury lawsuit,
those acts of carelessness are referred to as “negligence”.
• Strict liability
• Strict liability, sometimes called absolute liability, is the legal
responsibility for damages, or injury, even if the person found strictly
liable was not at fault or negligent.
Intentional Torts
• Elements
o Duty
o Breach
• Megenity v. Dunn, 68 N.E.3d 1080 (2017)
o Damage/Injury
• Assault
o an intentional act by a person that gives an apprehension in another
person of an imminent harmful or offensive contact.
• Must be overt act
• Words alone are not sufficient (Threaten to harm)
• Reasonable fear of harm
• Victim must be aware of the harm
• Battery
o The harmful or offensive touching of another
• Actual injury not required
• Battery may be committed by intentionally knocking a hat off someone's
head or knocking a glass out of some-one's hand
o The intent is with the touch, not an intent to harm
• Trooper Nathan Abbott was patrolling when he said he became
“interested” in Mitchell’s Durango because of its tinted windows
and environmental license plate. The trooper drove past the
vehicle, looked into the Durango’s window and pulled the vehicle
over. Abbott told his dispatcher he was pulling the vehicle over
for a “possible” narcotics violation. When Mitchell, a plaster &
cement mason from Gary, granted the trooper permission to
search his vehicle, Abbott repeatedly asked him where the guns
and drugs were. “You don’t know how good it’s going to feel
when I find these drugs” said Abbott. During the search, Mitchell
was doublehandcuffed and locked in the police car, while Love, a
guard at the State Prison in Michigan City, was ordered to stand at
the side of the road. Both men told Abbott they did not have any
drugs. Abbott searched the vehicle 3 times (once with dogs) but
found no drugs or guns. Mitchell was taken to jail on an
outstanding warrant. The warrant was recalled and Mitchell was
released. He sought treatment at the hospital for wrist and
shoulder pain. He sued the state police for false imprisonment.
• Jury found for the men - Mitchell was awarded $200,000 and
Love $100,000.
• False imprisonment requires only a demonstration that a
person’s freedom of movement was restricted against his will.
• False Imprisonment
o The illegal confinement of one individual against her will by another
individual so that person’s freedom of movement is restrained
• The threat of force or arrest, or a belief on the part of the person being
restrained that force will be used, is sufficient
• Trespass to Land
o An unauthorized entry upon land (a hunter who enters fields where
hunting is forbidden is a trespasser, and so is a company that throws
rocks onto neighboring land when it is blasting)
• Every unlawful entry onto another's property is trespass, even if no harm is done to
the property. A person who has a right to come onto the land may become a
trespasser by committing wrongful acts after entry onto the land
• Conversion (Trespass to personal property)
o Unlawful taking or use of someone else's property
• Must be personal property, because real property cannot be lost and then found; must be
tangible, such as money, an animal, furniture, tools, or receipts .
• Intentional Infliction of Emotional
Distress
o Intentional conduct that results in mental reaction such as anguish,
grief, or fright to another person’s actions that entails recoverable
damages
• Outrageous conduct by the defendant;
• The defendant's intention of causing or reckless disregard of the
probability of causing emotional distress;
• The plaintiff's suffering severe or extreme emotional distress; and
• Actual and proximate causation of the emotional distress by the
defendant's outrageous conduct.
 Tort Defenses
• Self Defense
o the duty to retreat states that a person who is under an imminent threat of personal harm
must retreat from the threat as much as possible before responding with force in self-
defense.
o right to prevent suffering force or violence through the use of a sufficient level of
counteracting force or violence (at common law this meant “reasonable force”)
o Stand your ground laws generally state that, under certain circumstances, individuals can
use force to defend themselves without first attempting to retreat from the danger.  The
purpose behind these laws is to remove any confusion about when individuals can defend
themselves and to eliminate prosecutions of people who legitimately used self-defense
even though they had not attempted to retreat from the threat.
 Defamation
• Slander
o Oral defamation published w/o legal excuse
• Libel
o Writing; sense of sight
• Defenses
o Truth
o Privilege
• privilege immunizes a defendant from suit, no matter how untrue
the statements might be, and even though the statements might
have been done with improper motives
o Absolute privilege:
• (1) Legislative Privilege
(2) Judicial Privilege
o Qualified privilege
• (3) Shopkeeper’s Privilege
• (4) Domestic Privilege

o Death
 Invasion of Privacy
• Intrusion into one’s private life/affairs
o Peeping Tom
o Wiretapping
• Public disclosure of private facts
o The disclosure of private facts must be a public disclosure
o The facts disclosed must be private facts, and not public ones
o The matter made public must be one which would be offensive and
objectionable to a reasonable person of ordinary sensibilities

• Washingtonienne
• Commercial appropriation of name or likeness

• http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/supermarket-chain-m
ust-pay-michael-jordan-8-9-million-using-n414151
 Negligence
• Elements
o Duty of Care
o Breach of duty
• Megenity v. Dunn
o Injury
o Actual cause
• Proximate cause

• https://youtu.be/yl93BePFrs4
• Marshall Baseball
• Res Ipsa Loquitur
o The thing speaks for itself

• A woman bit into a partial finger served in a bowl of chili at a Wendy’s

restaurant which led to officials looking at a fingerprint database. The
incident left the woman ill and distraught. She was emotionally upset and
vomiting. Employees at Wendy’s were asked to show investigators their
fingers. All were accounted for. Officials checked with food processing
plant. No reports of fingers missing. Officials seized the remaining chili
and closed the store. The finger was approximately 1 ½ inches long and
belonged to a female.
• https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/04/08/health/fresh-express-salad-bat-cdc/in
• Respondeant Superior
• Assumption of Risk
• if a person was injured in part due to his/her own negligence
(his/her negligence "contributed" to the accident), the injured party
would not be entitled to collect any damages (money) from another
party who supposedly caused the accident.
• Comparative Fault
o Jury determines responsibility and damages based on the negligence of every
party directly involved in the accident
• Sovereign Immunity
o The ancient English principle that the monarch can do no wrong
o Prevents the government or its political subdivisions, departments, and
agencies from being sued without its consent
o Tort Claims Act
 Strict Liability
• Imposes liability without regard to intent to harm or any
negligence occurred.
• Liability w/o fault
• Liability imposed because the activity involved is so
dangerous that there must be full accountability.