False Imprisonment

Question 1

False Imprisonment public policy

Answer 1

this tort protects personal dignity, individual freedom, freedom of movement, liberty, and autonomy.

Question 1

False Imprisonment definition

Answer 1

Defendant is liable for false imprisonment when the defendant voluntarily acts with the intent to confine another to a bounded area, directly or indirectly, where the plaintiff is aware or harmed by it, absent privilege.

Question 2

Elements of False Imprisonment

Answer 2

Voluntary: without outside influence; of one’s own free will

Acts: external manifestation of the actor’s will

Intent:
o Specific: purpose or desire to produce the consequences
o General: if the defendant sets in motion a chain of events knowing with substantial certainty the outcome is likely to occur
o Transferred: trying to commit a tort against one person, but accidentally committing it against another person

Bounded area: closed on all sides

Aware: knowledge

Harm: knowledge/physical injury

Confinement: restriction of physical liberty, contained in a place you cannot safely leave, fixed or bounded area closed on all 4 sides

Directly or indirectly:

Question 3

Choice of harms rule

Answer 3

If there is a dangerous means of escape and the plaintiff takes it where he could otherwise safely remain falsely imprisoned, then the damages the plaintiff suffers by escaping are a harm without a remedy, but the defendant will still be liable for the false imprisonment

If a plaintiff will be injured for staying falsely imprisoned, or chooses an unsafe means of escape and is harmed, the defendant is liable for both the false imprisonment and the harm suffered during the escape

Question 4

Sub Rules for False Imprisonment

Answer 4

You can be FI’d in a city and a state

You cannot be FI’d in a country

If there is a safe means of escape, and the plaintiff is aware of escape, there is no false imprisonment

There is no need to prove malice in false imprisonment; it doesn’t matter if you falsely imprisoned someone with good motives

There is no false imprisonment in keeping someone from a premises (exclusion)

If there is a safe means of escape and the plaintiff is unaware of it, there is false imprisonment

You can be falsely imprisoned by words which you fear to disregard

If you are in a place where one exit is locked but there is another available reasonable means of exit, then there is no false imprisonment.

For private citizens: false arrest may not occur if the defendant was asked by law enforcement to commit a false arrest and they did not know that it was unlawful
o If a private citizen knows it was unlawful, then they are liable

Shopkeepers privilege

Moral indignation is not false imprisonment

Plaintiff must show proof of physical restraint (Whittaker v. Sandford)

False imprisonment may occur if the defendant, having the duty to do so, fails to provide the means of leaving
o However, the defendant MUST have a duty