Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Your Chance to Comment on the Restatement of Intentional Torts: 101 Battery
In an attempt to elicit comments about the ALI's Restatement of Intentional Torts, Ken Simons and Ellen Pryor asked that I post the black letter portions of the current draft. Today we start with section 101 on battery. If you have comments, you can post them here or send them directly to Ken and Ellen (or both). Ken can be reached at: [email protected] and Ellen at [email protected]. The entire draft, comments and all, is here.
§ 101. Battery
(1) An actor is subject to liability to another for battery if:
(a) the actor intends to cause a contact with the person of the other;
(b) the actor’s conduct causes such a contact;
(c) the contact (i) is offensive or (ii) causes bodily harm to the other;
and
(d) the other does not actually consent to the contact [or to the
conduct that causes the contact].
(2) A contact is offensive if:
(a) the contact offends a reasonable sense of personal dignity; or
(b) the actor knows that the contact seriously offends the other’s sense
of personal dignity, and it is not unduly burdensome for the actor to refrain
from causing the contact.
--CJR
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/tortsprof/2014/05/your-chance-to-comment-on-the-restatement-of-intentional-torts-101-battery.html
Comments
Thanks for this and your other comments on the R3 Intentional Torts draft. Many of your questions are answered in the full version of the draft, which TortsProfBlog has linked to.
Battery is almost uniformly considered to require intent in the sense of purpose or knowledge, though a few jurisdictions do impose liability even for negligent battery.
Posted by: Ken Simons | Jun 6, 2014 2:07:58 PM
Re (1)(a) - why not reckless, an intent within the scope of comparable provisions of the Model Penal Code?
Re (2)(b) - it is a bit hard to see what kind of fact pattern this is getting at. A contact with an eggshell defendant because it is unduly burdensome makes sense in a negligence situation but it is hard to see what kind of intentional contact scenarios are involved.
Posted by: ohwilleke | Jun 3, 2014 2:38:46 PM