Preface: It’s been over a year since I’ve taken torts, I’ve never practiced tort litigation, and I didn’t even bother to check my outlines to make sure this information is correct. With that said, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong about anything, but let’s hope that no one will be planning any litigation based on this introduction to torts.

Assault / Battery (Bonaduce v. FairPlay)

Amusingly enough, we actually watched this clip in my torts class.  Many students have trouble differentiating the torts of assault and battery.  To disambiguate, fast-forward to 0:23.  Here’s where FairPlay has called Bonaduce’s attention to his incoming touching.

Here’s the prima facie for assault:

1. A acts,
2. Intending to cause in P the apprehension of (a) imminent harmful contact with P, or (b) imminent contact with P that is offensive; and
3. A’s act causes P reasonably to apprehend an imminent harmful or offensive contact with P.

Anyone who knows FairPlay’s persona knows that 2(a) isn’t likely, so we have to move to 2(b).  Now, I remember that after this incident, FairPlay explained to the press that he does this frequently and he was simply playing around.  From FairPlay’s perspective then, it might be the case that he didn’t intend to cause offensive contact.  Still, to determine whether the contact was offensive, the standard is objective: meaning that whatever FairPlay actually thought isn’t important (as usual).

Now for the battery: skip ahead to 0:24.  Whereas assault focuses on the apprehension, battery focuses on the contact itself.  To unnecessarily convolute this distinction, understand that elements of assault and battery are essentially the same, except for battery, replace #3 with:

A’s act causes such contact.

Once again, the only unclear question is whether the contact was offensive.  With battery, as with assault, we tend to consider what society considers offensive.  Here, it seems likely that the reasonable person would find FairPlay’s body humping to be offensive.

False Imprisonment (Invisible Beer Can Wall)

Okay, so you should probably overlook the fact that this is a dog rather than a person.  This could be false imprisonment because the pet handler (1) acted, (2) his actions lead to the cute doggy being imprisoned, and (3) the dog seems to know that it is confined.  Now we get to argue about the definition of imprisonment.  Sure, the dog technically could have run through the beer cans, but clearly some psychological effect is keeping him there.  Is he scared?  If so, he may be able to recover.

Additionally, if the handler knows that the dog has an extreme phobia of squeeking rubber ducks, he may have committed battery as well — sounds and air have been considered battery.

Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress (College Humor Propsal)

I should probably begin this section with a quote from my torts professor. “IIED doesn’t win in real life, or on the exam.”  With that said, here’s prima facie for IIED:

1. An extreme and outrageous act by D
2. Where D intended to cause severe emotional distress (or alternatively was extremely reckless about not realizing that severe emotional distress could result)
3. The resulting distress must be more than a reasonable person could be expected to endure.

As my professor explained it, it’s conduct that makes you want to scream OUTRAAAGEEEOUSSS.  Prong-at-issue here is likely 2, where the prankster would likely claim that he didn’t intend to cause emotional distress (e.g. he was simply joking).  Still, the court will consider whether his conduct was reckless enough to warrant IIED.  The real difficult aspect, if memory serves, comes from showing the resulting emotional distress.  We’re not talking that she stayed home from work the next day because of the embarassment; think more along the lines of she locked herself in her parents’ basement for 17 days without food or water and has pulled all her hair out.  And that, friends, is why IIED doesn’t win, in real life, or on the exam.

Negligence (Super Clean Glass)

I sense the inner hippie in you bubling up.  “Cleaning glass can’t be a civil wrong!  More like a civil right!”  Boy, you are clever.  As it turns out, as with most things law, the answer is, “Sure it can, in the right situation.”  I could write out the prima facie for negligence, but just remember this mantra: duty breach causes harm.

This scenario is simplified a bit for us.  Invitees are people who enter property for the material benefit of the owner (usually customers).  Because invitees are owed a duty of reasonable care, they must be alerted to even obvious dangers — in essence, it’s kind of a duty-per-se (I just made that up, I could be lying).  Now, it stands to reason that if several people have walked into the same pane of glass thinking that it’s a door, it’s reasonable to expect that the business will take steps to warn subsequent customers (perhaps by hanging a sign).  By failing to do so, they may have breached their duty to the invitees.  Causation can get pretty complicated, but let’s keep it simple.  Is it true that but-for the failure of the employees to take steps to protect invitees from the super clean glass, Customer X wouldn’t have walked into the glass? Probably, and that’s why there may be actual causation.  As to harm, well, that’s the relatively easy question.

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We hope that you’ve enjoyed this ridiculously simplistic and ultimately unhelpful introduction to tort law via YouTube. 

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