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https://www.uninote.co.uk/vendor/kings-llb-student/ All rights reserved to the author. Tort Law Notes Part 1 out of 2 [127 pages] Contents: Intentional Interferences with the Person + Defences Occupiers’ Liability Nuisance + The Tort in Rylands v Fletcher Remedies Vicarious Liability 1 https://www.uninote.co.uk/vendor/kings-llb-student/ All rights reserved to the author. Intentional Interferences with the Person Who can sue whom, in what tort, for what damage and are there any defences? Causes of Action Trespass to the person is an intentional tort = the conduct must be deliberate. It is the act and not the injury that has to be intentional, D does not need to intend to commit a tort or cause harm. Trespass is actionable without proof of damage. Letang v Cooper [1965] QB 232 Patch of land/grass used as car park for a hotel. Claimant sunbathing on that patch, car ran over her. Suffered severe injuries to her legs, she sued. It mattered whether she was bringing her claim in the tort of battery and in the tort of negligence because of the limitation period. This no longer applies because of new statute (private law 6 years, personal injury 3 years). Lord Denning: “We divide the causes of action now according as the defendant did the injury intentionally or unintentionally.” Intentionally = trespass to the person Unintentionally = negligence ASSAULT An assault is an act which causes another person to apprehend the infliction of immediate, unlawful, force on his person. Assault protects the right not to be put in fear of unlawful invasion of our integrity. Elements: 1) Intention that claimant apprehends the application of unlawful force. 2) Claimant must reasonable apprehend the application of unlawful force. 3) The threat must be of immediate and direct force. Immediacy Stephens v Myers Argument at a parish meeting → C was the chairman of the meeting, D was sitting at the other end of the table, got into an argument. Motion was raised that D should leave. D said “I’d rather turn the chairman out of his chair than leave.” 2 https://www.uninote.co.uk/vendor/kings-llb-student/ All rights reserved to the author. Lots of other people between D and C. Did D have the means to carry it out? Was there a threat of immediate and direct force? Tindal CJ: “It is not every threat, where there is no actual personal violence, that constitutes an assault, there must in all cases, be the means of carrying the threat into effect.” Tuberville v Savage (1669) 1 Mod 3 D says to C: “If it were not assize time, I would not take such language from you” and put hand on his sword. Threat conditional, condition not satisfied, so not an immediate threat – no assault. Look at the nature, what was actually says, as well as the means of carrying it out. Thomas v National Union of Mine Workers Striking miners were protesting. Some people decided to go to work during the strike, not well received by the strikers who made threats against the workers going in on buses. Scott J: ‘The tort of assault is not, in my view, committed, unless the capacity in question is present at the time the overt act is committed. Since the working miners are in vehicles and the pickets (people striking) are held back from the vehicles, I do not understand how even the most violent of threats or gestures could be said to constitute an assault.’ R v Ireland [1998] AC 147 Facts: D spent three months harassing three women with silent phone calls to their home at night, sometimes with heavy breathing. Not threatening anything expressly. Can words alone amount to an assault? Or was a physical manifestation of the threat required? Lord Steyn: “The proposition that a gesture may amount to an assault, but that words can never suffice, is unrealistic and indefensible. A thing said is also a thing done. There is no reason why something said should be incapable of causing an apprehension of immediate personal violence.” “He intends by his silence to cause fear and he is so understood. The victim is assailed by uncertainty about his intentions. Fear may dominate her emotions, and it may be the fear that the caller's arrival at her door may be imminent. She may fear the possibility of immediate personal violence.” Landlines → he knew that they were in their house. This was a key element to how menacing this was. Ratio: Silence can amount to assault, despite no gestures or words. Must look at the facts. Importance placed on the effect on the victim. 3 https://www.uninote.co.uk/vendor/kings-llb-student/ All rights reserved to the author. BATTERY A battery is the actual infliction of unlawful force on another person. Battery protects our bodily integrity. Elements: 1) Intention on the part of the defendant (intentional conduct) 2) Application of direct and immediate force 3) The application of that force must be unlawful (without justification) Collins v Wilcock (1984) Facts: A woman was charged with assaulting a police officer. Woman was a prostitute. Officer grabbed her arm but did not place her under arrest, she retaliated and hurt the officer. Unlawful for officer to have grabbed her in the first place. Defines the three trespass to the person torts. Goff LJ: Broad underlying principle “The fundamental principle, plain and incontestable, is that every person's body is inviolate. It has long been established that any touching of another person, however slight, may amount to a battery.” Blackstone’s Commentaries: “The law cannot draw the line between different degrees of violence, and therefore totally prohibits the first and lowest stage of it.” Goff LJ: General exception “Generally speaking, consent is a defence to battery; and most of the physical contacts of ordinary life are not actionable because they are impliedly consented to by all who move in society and so expose themselves to the risk of bodily contact.” Ratio: If you show that someone touched you without your consent or justification, that is a battery, don’t need to show that you suffered any harm. 4 https://www.uninote.co.uk/vendor/kings-llb-student/ All rights reserved to the author. Transferred intent Battery must show intentional conduct in the application of the unlawful force. Complication → e.g. A aiming at B who is standing in front of C, but missed B and hit C instead. James v Campbell C and D involved in argument. Third man was the source of most of the heat in the discussion, a Mr Paxton. Aimed at Paxton but gave C two black eyes. Claimant succeeded. Livingstone v Ministry of Defence During a NI Troubles riot, a soldier fired a baton round into the crowd and hit C. MoD argued there can’t be a battery because not aiming at the claimant in particular. You intended to apply force, doesn’t matter that it was someone else you intended to apply force to. Transfer doesn’t negate intention. Scott v Shepherd [1773] 2 Black W 892 D threw a firework into a crowded market place. Interjection of people who panicked and threw it is a natural reaction, intervened and created a chain of throwing the firework. Whatever mischief follows from the original perpetrator’s unlawful act to frighten the bystanders comes back to him. Recklessness Bici v Ministry of Defence British soldiers overseas, locals in celebration firing guns in the air Soldier fired at a person he thought was going to fire at him. Not a defence. Spraying bullets to a car coming towards you is at least reckless. Recklessness is sufficient to establish liability. Must be subjective recklessness → appreciated the potential harm 5 https://www.uninote.co.uk/vendor/kings-llb-student/ All rights reserved to the author. Hostility Wilson v Pringle [1987] QB 237 (overruled) Two boys as school where messing around. One boy jumps in the air and yanks the schoolbag from the other boy’s shoulder and causes him injury. D argues this was just horseplay. C says it is a hostile act, physical intrusion. ‘It is the act and not the injury which must be intentional. An intention to injure is not essential to an action for trespass to the person. It is the mere trespass by itself which is the offence.’ Croom-Johnson LJ: ‘Another ingredient in the tort of trespass to the person is that of hostility … If there is hostile intent, that will by itself be cogent evidence of hostility. But the hostility may be demonstrated in other ways…’ F v West Berkshire AHA (1990) HL held that hostility is not a requirement of battery. There is a difference between the general exception established in Colins v Wilcock and acts which aren’t hostile but are batteries. 6 https://www.uninote.co.uk/vendor/kings-llb-student/ All rights reserved to the author. FALSE IMPRISONMENT False imprisonment is the unlawful imposition of constraint on another's freedom of movement from a particular place. False Imprisonment protects our personal liberty in a physical sense. Elements: 1) D must intend the restriction of C’s freedom of movement. 2) Imprisonment – complete restriction of C’s freedom of movement. 3) ‘False’ – The restriction must be unlawful. 1. Intention R v Governor of Brockhill Prison, ex parte Evans Facts: Evans, governor of Brockhill Prison, made a mistake and accidentally kept C in prison for 59 days because of a sentence miscalculation. C sued for false imprisonment. Governor was held liable. Ratio: False imprisonment = tort of strict liability Unless you can justify the lawfulness of the act, you are liable.
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