Intentional Torts & Negligence - Elements

What are the elements to a battery claim?

1. Voluntary act 2. Intent to touch 3. Touch results 4. Intent to cause harm or offense 5. Harm or offense occurs

What are the five types of intent in a battery claim?

1. Inferrence based upon actions - Snyder v. Turk 2. Knowlege with substantial certainty - Garratt v. Dailey 3. Lack of consent - Mullins v. Parkview Hospital 4. Purpose to harm or offend - Restatement (throwing stone into a crowd) 5. Transferred intent - Stoshak v. East Baton Rouge Parish School

What are the elements to an assault claim?

1. Voluntary act 2. Intent to cause apprehension (objective standard) 3. Apprehension (fear or awareness of battery) results 4. of imminent or impending nature 5. Apprehension causes harm or offense

Name three cases dealing with assault?

1. Cullison v. Medley - family breaks into a man's trailor and threatens him with a gun. D later threatens P in a store. 2. Dicken's v. Puryear - a group of men beat and threaten to castrate and kill another man but use conditional language, which negated the imminency requirement of assualt. 3. Raess v. Doescher - man pushes doctor up against a wall and pretends to throw a punch but stops short of impact, then leaves.

What are the elements of a false imprisonment claim?

1. Intentional 2. Confinement (within a limited area) 3. of another 4. Without privelege or consent 5. For an appreciable time 6. Victim concsious of or harmed thereby

What are fives cases that deal with false imprisoment?

1. McCann v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. - Lady and her children detained by security under color of law for suspected shoplifting. Her kid was confined for 10 minutes and not allowed to use the restroom. 2. Shen v. Leo A Daly Co. - man prevented from leaving Taiwan, not enough for false imprisonment, which involves a limited range of movement. 3. Thorsen v. Kaufmann's Department Stores - D grabs a woman's pants from a dressing room because he suspects she is attempting to shoplift. The woman wishes to leave a department store but does not want to leave without her pants. Duress of goods is not enough to establish false confinement. 4. Fuerschbach v. Southwest Airlines Co. - Officers were held liable for false confinement by participating in a practical joke to stage a false arrest of an airline employee. 5. Hunter v. The Buckle, Inc. - D held liable for false confinement for inducing an officer to unlawfully detain another.

What case specifically addresses the duration of the privilege to detain?

State of Maryland v. Dett - A woman was arrested on an oustanding warrant and detained for four days before release, even though the officer knew shortly after arrest that the woman held was not the woman that the warrant described.

What are the elements of trespass to land?

1. Intentional act (single intent - deliberate) 2. Entry 3. Upon land 4. Of Another

What are the elements of conversion of chattels?

1. To establish substantial dominion 2. Over the chattels of another 3. With intent to convert to "own use"

What damages are plaintiffs entitled to in a conversion claim?

Damages for the entire value of the chattels converted.

What factors differenctiate between conversion of chattels and trespass to chattels?

1. Extent and duration of control 2. D's intent to assert a right to property 3. D's good faith 4. The harm done to chattels 5. Expense or inconvenience caused

What case deals specifically with trespass to chattels?

School of Visual Arts v. Kuprewicz - a former employee caused large volumes of pornographic emails and unsolicited job applications to be sent to P, thereby, severly limiting P's hard disk space and drained processing power. The court held that these facts, if true, would constitute a valid claim for trespass to chattels by harming "a materially valuable interest in the phyical condition, quality, or value of the chattel" or depriving owner of the use thereof for "a substanial time."

What are the elements of a negligence claim?

1. Duty of care 2. Breach of duty 3. Harm results 4. Actual cause 5. Proximate cause

What is the benefit of negligence per se?

A claim of negligence per se proves the first 2 elements of a negligence claim: duty of care and breach of duty.

Per O'Guin v. Bingham County, what was the test to determine if a common law duty can be replaced by a standard of care supplied by a statute or ordinance?

1. The statute or regulation must clearly define the standard of conduct. 2. The statute or regulation must have been enacted with the intent to prevent the type of harm that occurred (resulting either from a negligent act or by ommission). 3. Plaintiff must be a member of the class of persons that the statute or regulation was designed to protect. 4. The violation of the statute or regulation must be the actual cause of the Plaintiff's injury.

Name three cases dealing with negligence per se.

1. O'Guin v. Bingham County - children wander into a landfill and die by falling into a pit wall that collapses around them. The court established a test for determing when a common law duty is supplanted by a standard of care in a statute, ordinance or regulation. 2. Impson v. Structural Metals, Inc. - Driver attempted to pass a car within 100 ft. of an intersection in violation of a statute and caused an accident. D held liable, but the court determined a set of excuses to negligence per se. 3. Bauman v. Crawford - Children are not held liable under the negligence per se standard. However, a child's violation of a statute can be used as evidence of negligence.

What are the four excuses for the negligence per se standard as identified by the Second Restatement and Impson v. Structural Metals, Inc.?

1. The violation is reasonble because of the actor's incapacity (minority, physical disability, or physical incapacitation). 2. The actor neither knows or should know of the need for compliance. 3. The actor is unable to comply after reasonable diligence or care. 4. The actor is confronted with an emergency not due to his own conduct. 5. Compliance would cause greater risk of harm to the actor or to others.

Are any of the following legitimate excuses to the negligence per se standard of care? "I didn't know the law" "I don't agree with the statue" "People violate the statute all the time"

No.

What four factors affect the calculus of negligence?

1. Social utility of the act or behavior in question 2. All behavior involves some risk 3. The degree of reasonableness of the risk 4. Whether or not the cost to prevent the risk is less than the probabiliy of risk and the cost of injury. (Hand Formula: B

Under what theories may a plaintiff collect for slip and fall injuries at a defendant's place of business?

1. Actual Notice - The defendant created and failed to take reasonable steps to abate the hazard. 2. Constructive Notice - The defendant did not directly create a condition but discovered or should have discovered it and failed to take reasonable steps to prevent injury. 3. Mode or Method of Operation - The Defendant's mode or method of operations made it foreseeable that others would create a dangerous condition leading to injury, and that he failed to take reasonable measures to discover and remove the risk.

What are six cases establishing exceptions or clarifications to the slip & fall rules?

1. Walmart Stores, Inc. v. Spates - Constructive notice is not established when hazard is present for only brief periods of time (plastic six-pack ring was on the floor for 30-45 seconds). 2. Jones v. Brookshire Grocery Co. - Recent inspections by a storekeeper can thwart a plaintiff's claim based upon constructive notice - wrinkle in a mat probably did not cause Plaintiff's fall because several employees had inspected the area throughout the day. 3. Edenshaw v. Safeway, Inc. - Fact finders may decide whether or not a store keeper was reasonable in maintaining the store's premises by considering all of the circumstances of the case (rules for slip/fall cases thereby become factors). 4. Ortega v. Kmart Corp - what length of time that is deemed unreasonable for a hazard to exist and remain unattended by the store owner is for a jury to decide on a case-by-case basis. 5. Lanier v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. - burden of proof can shift to store to excupate itself once plaintiff establishes that a fall was caused by a foreign substance. 6. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Wright - the store's internal handbook detailing practices for clean-up of spills did not establish the standard of care per the law pursuant to negligence.

What does res ipsa loquitur mean and what is its significance to negligence law?

"The thing speaks for itself"; it establishes that a defendant was negligence by mere occurence of the act that caused harm, and allows a plaintiff to survive a defendant's motion for directed verdict to get his case to the jury.

What four things must a plaintiff prove to establish res ipsa loquitur?

1. The event causing harm is the kind that ordinarily does not occur in the absence of negligence. 2. Other possible causes, including conduct by the plaintiff and third parties, are sufficiently eliminated by the evidence. 3. The indicated negligence is with the scope of D's duty to P. 4. (Third Restatement Only) Negligence can be inferred based upon D's actions when the action causing harm is ordinarily only the result of negligence of a class of actors of which D is a relevant member.