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A comprehensive overview of intentional torts, exploring key definitions, examples, and legal principles. It examines the concept of intent in tort law, highlighting its significance in determining liability. The document also delves into specific intentional torts such as assault, battery, false imprisonment, and trespass, providing insights into their elements and legal implications.
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Submitted by: Submitted to: Noyonika Ghose Dr. Manpreet Kaur Roll no.: 23110 Asst. Professor of Law Semester: 2, Sec: B
Acknowledgement I would like to take this opportunity to express my profound gratitude and deep regard to Dr. Manpreet Kaur for her guidance and valuable feedback. All that I have done is only due to her constant support through the duration of this project. I would also like to express my gratitude to Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab for providing me with all possible online resources required for the completion of my project and for allocating this topic to me. Noyonika Ghose
Mens rea is an essential element of a crime. A person cannot be convicted for an offence unless his mens rea i.e. guilty intention improved. Common intentional torts are battery, assault, false imprisonment, trespass to land, trespass to chattels, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Knowledge along with reasonable and substantial certainty, that an act of the defendant shall produce a tortious result, is sufficient to hold him liable. Law of Torts in India is a derivative of the principles of common law, which was practised and propounded by England. It was made suitable to the Indian jurisprudence according to the principles of justice and equity. Torts isn’t looked up in India as a major branch od law and litigation, considering its rarely applicable in India. Punishment as a concept occupies a more prominent place in the Indian legal system than Compensation. In M.C. Mehta v. Union of India^1 , Justice Bhagwati said, “we have to evolve new principles and lay down new norms which will adequately deal with new problems which arise in a highly industrialized economy. We cannot allow our judicial thinking to be constructed by reference to the law as it prevails in England or for the matter of that in any foreign country. We are certainly prepared to receive light from whatever source it comes but we have to build our own jurisprudence.” A voluntary act can be held in strict liability if there’s a presence of required mental element i.e., malice, intention, negligence or motive in addition to the other necessary ingredients of the torts are present. Malice means spite or ill-will. However, in law malice has two distinct meanings such as: 1. Intentional doing of a wrongful act and 2. Improper motive. In the first sense, malice is synonymous with intention and in the second sense, malice refers to any motive which the law disapproves. (^1) M.C. Mehta v. Union of India (UOI) and Ors. 1987 SCR (1) 819; AIR 1987 965
Intention^2 is an internal fact, something which passes in the mind and direct evidence of which is not available. There’s a popular saying that it is common knowledge that the thought of man shall not be tried, for the devil himself knoweth not the thought of man. (^2) https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intention
wrong. Probably the most common type of tort lawsuit is negligence. In order to prove negligence, the victim needs to prove that the defendant breached a duty of care owed to them, and that the breach was the cause of their injuries or losses. For instance, if the defendant had a duty to keep their shop floor clean, but failed to do so, the plaintiff may be able to sue them if they were injured due to a slip on the dirty shop floor. In a tort, a plaintiff is an injured party and the person who’s negligence led to the injury, is the defendant or the tortfeasor, or the negligent party. A civil action can be inititated against the negligent to recoup the compensation for the loss or harm caused. However, negligence is just one tort category. The harm of tort is committed by anyone who refused to perform his duty of care as a normal reasonable person against another. Regardless of the tortious action, three elements should be requisite to claiming the action of tort. One, the defendant owed a duty to behave in a certain manner The plaintiff must prove that the defendant did not perform his duty reasonably The plaintiff incurred a loss or was harmed as a result of the breach of duty. Tortious liability is invoked in cases of civil action involving private parties. The punishment for such acts usually involves recouping the injured party financially. 4 Below are some definitions of torts given by some great thinkers - According to Salmond “Tort is a civil wrong for which the remedy is a common law action for unliquidated damages, and which is not exclusively the breach of a contract or the breach of a trust, or other merely equitable obligation^5 Winfield defines torts as “Tortious liability arises from the breach of a duty primarily fixed by law. This duty is towards persons generally and its breach is redressable by an action for unliquidated damages”^6 (^4) R. K. Bangia, Law of Torts , Allahabad Law Agency, 2019, pp. 84- (^5) Davies, Christine. The Modern Law Review , vol. 33, no. 3, 1970, pp. 334–337. JSTOR , www.jstor.org/stable/1094230. (^6) Jenks, Edward. “The Province of Tort in English Law.” Journal of Comparative Legislation and International Law , vol. 14, no. 4, 1932, pp. 207–215. JSTOR , www.jstor.org/stable/754196.
Pollock’s contribution to the definition is “tort is an act or omission (not merely the breach of a duty arising out of personal relations, or undertaken by a contract which is related to harm suffered by a determinate person, giving rise to a civil remedy which is not an action of contract”^7 (^7) F, H, Cooke, “A Proposed New Definition of a Tort”. Harvard Law Review, Vol. 12, No. 5, pp. 335-341, 25th (^) Dec, 1898: https://www.jstor.org/stable/
Recklessness can be the basis for many types of personal injury claims. If a person was reckless, it means that the persons knew, or should have had knowledge that their conduct was likely to cause harm. Intention does not play a very crucial role in both recklessness and negligence. This can be explained by understanding the definitions of both and through the relevant case laws. This is a greater level of liability than negligence, but still less than intentional conduct. With recklessness, the person knowingly takes a risk that their actions will result in harm to the plaintiff.^9 Many state laws and statutes prohibit or criminalizes reckless conduct, as they present unwanted dangers to people. Some examples of conduct that can be considered reckless include:
Again, proving recklessness generally requires that the following elements be met:
Donoghue v. Stevenson (1932). 13 Even if the defective good is a bottle of ginger beer with a snail in it, there is a duty of care. It was purchased by a friend of hers, not by herself. BREACH OF DUTY TO TAKE CARE A plaintiff must show that the defendant owed him a duty of care in addition to proving that the defendant breached his obligation to the plaintiff. A defendant violates such a responsibility when he or she fails to fulfil it with reasonable care. In other words, as stated in the case of Blyth v. Birmingham Waterworks Co (1856)^14 , a violation of a duty of care indicates that the person who has an existing duty of care should act sensibly and not omit or commit any act that he is required to do or not do. In simple words, it refers to a failure to meet a standard of care. In the case of Ramesh Kumar Nayak versus Union of India (1994)^15 , the post authorities failed to keep a post office's compound wall in excellent repair, resulting in the defendant's injuries. The postal authorities were found to be accountable since they had a duty to maintain the post office buildings, and the collapse occurred as a result of their failure to do so. Hence, they were liable to pay compensation. BATTERY A battery is commonly referred to as a full-fledged assault, however this isn't always the case. Making unintentional touch with someone, such as while walking through a throng, will not result in battery; nevertheless, purposely shoving someone will result in battery. Furthermore, the defendant does not have to physically touch the plaintiff; the contact can be indirect, such as purposefully hitting another person's automobile with your own. This "battery" definition is quite widespread in civil litigation across the country, as we discussed in the "assault" section above. However, state criminal codes differ in how they define "battery," and in many states, the definitions for the crimes of "assault" and "battery" (^13) Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] UKHL 100 (^14) Blyth v Birmingham Waterworks Company ( 1856 ) 11 Ex Ch 781 (^15) Ramesh Kumar Nayak versus Union of India (1994), 1995 ACJ, AIR 1994 ori 279
may overlap, or one phrase (such as "assault" or "assault and battery") may include both offences.^16 ASSAULT An attack is often characterised as deliberate behaviour that is intended to put another person in a reasonable fear of adverse contact. The contact must appear to be imminent, which means the offender must appear to have the power to produce the contact right now, even if he or she is not capable of inflicting injury. Even if there is no physical contact, an assault has been committed. It's the purposeful creation of fear of contact that gives rise to the civil or criminal liability. It's worth noting that the definition of civil assault, or "intentional tort," varies from state to state because it's based on long-standing "common law" norms that apply to civil disputes all over the country, rather than specific statutes. Because criminal statutes differ from state to state, and each state has its own statutory definition of assault, there will always be some discrepancies.^17 FALSE IMPRISONMENT It is not essential to place the person behind bars for incarceration; rather, he should be confined in an area from which there are no conceivable escape routes other than the will of the person restricting the person within that region. It is not the length of the imprisonment that is important, but rather the lack of legal power to justify unlawful detention. 18 This tort, like practically every other tort, has a defence. Consent of the plaintiff or voluntary assumption of the danger, probable cause, and contributory negligence are all defences against false imprisonment. The plaintiff's consent and probable cause defences are complete defences; however, the contributory negligence defence is only used to mitigate damage. (^16) David Goguen, “Assault and Battery”, Lawyers. Com https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/personal-injury/types-of-personal-injury-claims/assault-and-battery.html (^17) Ibid (^18) Legal Information Institute, “False Imprisonment”, LII Wex Law Journal , Cornell Law School, https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/false_imprisonment
Theories of intent in tort law are either subjectivist or objectivist. The subjectivist approaches, been explored more seriously in the criminal law than in the torts, appear in Kantian theory. Under the subjectivist approach to intentional torts, the law punishes tortfeasors for knowingly violating norms that are implicit in the law. Those norms, in turn, reflect the view that it is morally objectionable if an actor uses others as a means to his own ends or fails to respect their autonomy. The objectivist approach, views mental state as having a weak relevance at best to the appropriateness of punishment. Legal standards are external to the actor’s mental state. The characterization of an actor’s mental state plays a role in designing an optimal regulatory system, but there is certainly no requirement under the objective approach to identify the true mental state of the actor as a primitive input in the process of determining liability. The objectivist definition of intent, which reduces it to knowledge of certain facts, the intent standard functions according to Holmes as an index of the probability of harm, in the sense that it allows courts to convict actors for otherwise innocent acts on the theory that those acts were likely to lead to immediate serious injury. For example, an actor can be convicted for attempted murder when the facts indicate an intent to follow through to the point of committing murder.^20 (^20) K. N. Hylton,”Intent in Tort Law”, Valparaiso University Law Review, Vol. 44, No. 4, Symposium on the Civil Rights of Public School Students, Valparaiso University, pp. 1217- https://scholar.valpo.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1076&context=vulr
Ethically, intention is assumed as the strongest basis to attribute the personal responsibility of conduct and outcome to the actor. However, in tort law, intention holds a ground lower than that of negligence. In this article, we have analysed what intention means and how it is related to other forms of negligence and violations enshrined under the law of tort, such as motive, recklessness, belief and voluntariness. We have also ventured into discussing the difficulties associated with proving other mental states and the general principle of tort liability for intention. The key to explaining the relatively minor role of mens rea in tort law is found to lie in the emphasis tort law gives to the interests of victims, and to social values, in constructing its concept of responsibility. This approach also helps to explain the greater importance of mens rea in criminal law.
