Trespass to the person - IRRELEVANT Flashcards
(31 cards)
3 fundamentals of TTP
direct invasion of relevant interest
doesn’t matter about loss
applicable against everyone - police, doctors
Compensation not the aim
Ashley v CC of Sussex - CC admitted negligence, willing to pay
HL wanted to show unlawful and sent to trial
compensation is not the point
Police overstepping legal powers
Connor v CC of Merseyside
- heavy burden on police to respect boundaries of legal powers
Does reasonableness apply
Tony Weir - mere reasonableness is not a valid reason to violate peoples rights
- power to arrest must exist
R v Governor of Blundeston Prison
- not sufficient justification that governor reasonably believes that prisoner must be detained
False imprisonment definition
Imprisonment and absence of lawful authority to justify it
False imprisonment = strict liability
Does not have to be sufficiently serious/ be at fault
Does not matter how brief
Battery and Assault defined in
Wainwright v Home Office
B - Physical interference
A - word or action indicating intention to commit B
Intention (bystander)
Bystander inevitable = intention
Binsaris v Northern Territory
CS gas used to detain one prisoner affected others inevitably - intentional and battery
Intention (act vs injury)
Wilson v Pringle
Act must be intentional - injury irrelevant
Law places importance on protecting citizens from direct physical interference through strong remedies for tort of battery
Wainwright v Home Office
- Intended hostile touching = battery regardless of injury
- battery is actionable per se
a) damages recoverable without loss
b) recoverable by causation, no foreseeability test
Acceptable touching
Wiffin v Kincard (1807) - Tapping shoulder - intentional, not battery
to Hostile or not to hostile?
wilson v pringle - hostile
Lord Goff in Re F(mental patient; sterilisation) says this is wrong, unwanted surgery, slap on back - dangerous if you can touch if not hostile
tap on shoulders but then battery
Collins v Wilcock policeman taps defendant on the shoulder then grabs her sleeve - battery -
did not use the power of arrest so grab is battery
1st Defence (consent)
without consent, all or almost all, medical procedure is unlawful however beneficial
Negligence not trespass - medicine
Chatterton v Gerson - failure to disclose all info is likely negligence not battery
But Montgomery has shifted towards patient focus
Consent (competent adult)
Re T (Adult; refusal of treatment)
without any mental incapacity you can refuse any treatment even if irrational
signed paper saying no transfusion. Sedation and motherly pressure thus held transfusion was fine
Cannot force feed a prisoner refusing food
Home Secretary v Robb
competent adult
False imprisonment - not necessarily physical
Jalloh - not necessarily incarcerated. angle tag is false imprisonment if unlawful
being made to stay somewhere
clash with Jalloh
R v Bournewood Community and mental Health NHS
- patient not locked in but would be section if he left
- ruled against the patient, based on the facts
Policy scrutiny - false imprisonment
Walker v Metropolitan Police
- unlawful to hold someone briefly in doorway without using arrest powers
Pure omission example
Iqbal v Prison Officers Association
- strike led to confinement in cell
- union not liable because prison governors decision not to open the cells
- prison officers not the ones falsely imprisoning them
False imprisonment - unaware
Meering v Grahame-White Aviation
- asked to wait in room, security outside, but compensation reflected stress caused
2nd Defence (pure omission)
Smith v Littlewoods organisation - common law does not impose liability for what are called pure omissions - clarity and certainty of the law
3rd Defence (Consent)
Herd v Weardale - Miner tries to strike and go up lift during strike - not false imprisonment
Train doors locked, same concept
