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Tort - Trespass to the Person (Offences (Relationship with crime (Main aim…
Tort - Trespass to the Person
Offences
Battery
Assault
False imprisonment
All actionable per se - no recognised loss/harm required - harm of intention
Not as heavily influenced by policy considerations as other torts - intention rather than carelessness required
Comes from ancient writ of trespass
Relationship with crime
Main aim of crime is to punish/deter - main aim of tort is to compensate victim - also justice and possibly appeasement
Different courts - criminal cases can have juries whereas here the judge decides - same offence in criminal and tort courts doesn't happen often, but does happen
Different standard of proof - balance of probabilities rather than beyond reasonable doubt
Different rules of evidence
Crime has different offences depending on harm - in tort harm is irrelevant
Battery
Direct and intentional application of force without legal justification
Elements required
Intentional act (claimant must prove)
Innes v Wylie - must be an act, not an emission
Letang v Cooper - must be intentional
Fowler v Lanning
Iqbal v Prison Officers Association - intention can include subjective recklessness
Wilson v Pringle - intention relates to the contact, not the harm
Livingstone v Ministry of Defence - doctrine of transferred malice applies
Direct
Wide definition - applies across the three torts
Dodwell v Burford - can be indirect contact (hit rump of horse and the horse bolted)
DPP v K (acid in hand drier)
R v Cotesworth - direct contact doesn't have to mean skin on skin (spat on doctor)
Hopper v Reeve - hit carriage on purpose with his own
Scott v Shepherd - novus actus interveniens not allowed
Baker v Willoughby - claimant shot in leg and later had leg amputated. after been injured by claimant - claimant argued that earlier injury obviated by later one - rejected
Later questioned in Jobling v Associated Dairies
Application of force
Wide definition
Cole v Turner - battery defined as "least touching of another in anger"
Nash v Sheen - dyed someone's hair without asking
Hostility
Only means lack of consent - still some uncertainty about what constitutes hostility beyond sphere of medical negligence and sport
F v West Berkshire HA - without implied or direct consent
Unlawful - even with everything else in place, can still have lawful defence
Consent - express or implied
Express
Chatterton v Gerson - medical consent - didn't know all the risks but knew the purpose and nature of the procedure
R v Williams - extreme case of non-valid consent - consent to act, but didn't understand the nature of it (singing teacher)
Appleton v Garrett - unnecessary dental treatment for financial gain - consented, but not valid
R v Richardson - dentist barred from practice - did consent and did need treatment so was allowed
Implied
Collins v Wilcock - contact in course of everyday life
Necessity
Very rare and specific
Must be an act needed to avoid irrevocable and irreparable evil - evil inflicted must be proportionate
Re A (children) (conjoined twins) - surgical separation allowed - one would die so the other could live, otherwise both would die
Self-defence
Proportionate - protection of self and property
Cockroft v Smith - biting off someone's finger not legitimate defence to poking in eye
Bird v Holbrook - not proportionate to set a spring-gun trap on property for intruders
Statutory authority
Within parameters of role
Collins v Wilcock - lawful arrest and detention
Reasonable chastisement
R v H (Reasonable Chastisement) - must consider the physical and mental consequences, the age of the child and the reason
Assault
Elements required
Intentional act
Tuberville v Savage - words can be enough - can cancel out the act and vice verse
Read v Coker - threatened to break neck if wouldn't leave - conditional words are enough - doesn't matter if claimant ostensibly has a choice
Direct
Same as battery
Cause apprehension of immediate battery
Objective requirement - "reasonable person"
R v St George - apprehension - claimant didn't know gun pointed at them wasn't loaded - so didn't matter
Thomas v NUM - genuinely afraid but not reasonable because in armoured car with police protection
R v Ireland - question of immediacy - threatening phone calls to women deemed enough
Unlawful
Same defences as battery, but no cases to support
False imprisonment
Elements required
Intentional act
R v Governor at Brockhill Prison - prison mix-up - kept prisoners for longer than supposed to - didn't matter that there was no fault - intended to restrain and did
Iqbal v Prison Officers Association - must be an act, not an omission - locked prisoners in cells all day during strike - only failed to let out
Davidson v CC of North Wales - don't need force - words are enough
Direct
Same as battery
Complete restriction
Bird v Jones - not enough to partially restrict - couldn't cross bridge but could go another way around
Robinson v Balmain Ferry - missed ferry after crossing through barrier and had to pay a penny to get out again - said had agreed to terms when he went through the turnstile
Herd v Weardale Steel - said had to wait to leave mines - again not complete
Murray v Ministry of Defence - doesn't matter if don't know you're imprisoned
Unlawful
Same defences
Rule in Wilkinson v Downton
For when other torts don't fit
Deliberate acts or words
Calculated to cause harm to the claimant
Harm caused
Unlawful
Wilkinson v Downton - played joke on claimant by telling her that her husband was in hospital - no contact, harm or fear for herself, no imprisonment and no negligence - but still harm caused unlawfully and deliberately - psychological
Janier v Sweeney - caused harm by telling her she was a suspected spy to get to documents in her house
Rhodes v OPO - no harm intended so no offence
Wainwright v Home Office - must be recognised psychiatric harm - more than distress
Wrong v Parkside Health NHS - again, not the right type of harm