Trespass to the Person & Land Flashcards
Assault, Battery, Harassment, False Imprisonment & Intentional Infliction of Emotional Harm (9 cards)
What is the tort of battery and what must be satisfied for this?
Blake v Galloway: ‘the intentional and direct application of force on another person’
1. Positive act (not an omission)
2. Intention
3. Causing physical contact
4. Without Consent (neither claimants, Re F, nor within the scope of socially accepted contact, Collins v Wilcock)
What do the cases on fault tell us about the defendant’s conduct?
- Fowler v Lanning: Where contact is unintentional, the claimant was required to show the defendant was acting negligently
- Letang v Cooper: Expanded further, negligent trespass to the person can only result in liability in negligence. For a claim of battery, the act of the defendant must be intentional
- Wilson v Pringle: Battery must be intentional and hostile, i.e. something the claimant would object to and find an unlawful intrusion on their bodily integrity
- In Re F: Doubted whether battery must be hostile, must be done without claimants consent (seems a weak requirement)
- Bici v Ministry of Defence: Transferred malice can apply to battery
What other issues must be satisfied in order for a battery to be made out?
- Burden of proof is on claimant to show they did not consent
- Battery can include physical acts but also any form of ‘physical molestation’ (F v West Berkshire HA)
- Contact must follow immediately from the defendants act or be a continuation of it
How is assualt defined in tort law and what can this include?
Any act that directly and intentionally causes the claimant to apprehend the imminent infliction of a battery
1. Positive act
2. Intention
3. Causes the claimant to apprehend imminent and unlawful contact to their person
* R v Ireland: this can include words and silence over the telephone
* Tuberville v Savage: If language indicates a threat is conditional, then this will not be a battery
What is false imprisonment?
Act of the defendant which directly and intentionally causes the confinement of the claimant depriving them of their liberty without their consent or lawful justification
* Robinson v Balmain New Ferry: If clear reasonable conditions for entry and exit are set forth and disclosed up front, enforcing them is not false imprisonment
* Herd v Weardale Steel, Coal & Coke: Where C voluntarily enters an area knowing they will not be able to get out except under conditions agreed with D, D’s failure to extricate the claimant does not count as detention
* Iqbal v Prison Officer Association: Requires positive act, omission not enough. Must have the intention to deprive C of their liberty. No need to show malice, must be total constraint
* Murray v Ministry of Defence: No requirement that the claimant be aware of the restraint on her freedom at the time of confinement
Lumba v Sos for Home Dept: If claimant knew damages are to be more than nominal. Tort is actionable without damage
How is the tort of harassment laid down in the law?
Protection from Harassment Act 1997
* S1(1), Person should not do a course of conduct that amounts to harassment and he ought to know it amounts to harassment
* S1(2) He ought to know it amounts to harassment if an ordinary person having all the information would think it to be harassment
* S1(3), defence if done for detecting / preventing crime
* S2, D also guilty of a criminal offence
* S3, Victim can sue for either damages or an injunction
* S4, Guilty of an offence if the conduct makes the claimant think violence will be used
* S7, course of conduct must have been two separate occassions or more, one not enough. Conduct includes speech
Hayes v Willoughby
Harassment is persistent and deliberate course of unreasonable conduct that is well known and causes fear / alarm
Note S26 Equality Act 2010 for harassment of protected persons, Part 3 means service provides can be guilty
How might a person be liable for the intentional infliction of emotional harm upon another?
Wilkinson v Downton: Held that D, a practical joker, was liable as he had willfully done an act calculated to cause physical harm to the claimant. Intention might need to be imputed
O v Rhodes
Clarified the elements of the tort:
1. Conduct element, comprising actions or words directed at the claimant or a group they are in with no justification or reasonable excuse
2. Intention element, deliberately causing either physical harm or extreme mental distress to the claimant (intention cannot be imputed, nor is recklessness sufficient)
3. Consequence element, physical harm or recognised psychiatric illness
4. Defendant should have no justification or reason for their conduct
What defences may be raised against a trespass to the person claim?
CONSENT
* Blake v Galloway: Consent can be implied from conduct. In regards to sport a person only consents to injury foreseeable in that particular game
* In Re F: Lawfulness of medical treatment to someone that cannot consent will depend on the Bolam test
* Lane v Holloway: Though during a fight each party takes a risk, they cannot be said to consent to risk of a blow out of all proportion to the event
SELF DEFENCE
Defendant must prove that it was necessary to use force to repel an attack and the amount of force used was reasonable
* Ashley v CC of Sussex Police: Mistaken belief is allowed provided it was reasonable for the other person to think they should apply force based on what the claimant did
* Defence of another person would likely be allowed for anyone, does not require special relationship
Contributory negligence is not a defence to assault and battery (Co-op v Pritchard)
Defence of necessity may also be used
How will a trespass to land be made out?
Claimant must have possession of the land and the interference with such must be direct, this can include merely walking on the land or interfering with anything attached to it. Only intention to enter the land is needed, not to trespass (Conway)
- Bernstein v Skyviews: Right does not entitle to all the airspace above land, only that necessary for ordinary use and enjoyment
- League Against Cruel Sports v Scott: An intention to trespass can be inferred by indifference to such incursions. Master of hunt liable if he intends or is negligent in preventing hounds from going on to anothers land
