Trespass On The Person; Battery - Essay Example

In the case of Wilkinson v Downtan [1897] 2 QB 57 emotional anguish was held to be battery, irrespective of the fact that there was no physical contact with the claimant. The defendant told the claimant as a form of bad joke that her husband had been seriously injured. The claimant suffered emotional distress and had to be taken to the hospital due to the shock suffered. The person being battered may not necessary be aware of the act or the harmful nature of the action being carried out against his/her person and causation may be direct or indirect.

It is further not necessary to prove damage in order to get an award. The degree of offensive or harmful standard is measured against what a reasonable man in the omnibus would deem offensive or harmful, when he analyses the contact objectively. Further battery does not have to entail physical to physical contact, this is because, touching an object that is construed to be intimately connected to another person with the owners consent is also deemed to be battery. Further, there may be a disconnect of events between the defendants actions and the plaintiff damage; and still the court will construe battery to have occurred.

If for example person A sets a trap for person B in the form of a mouse trap, battery occurs when person B is actually caught in the trap. As stated earlier it not material that the victim is aware that the tort is being carried out. A good example is when a doctor is performing a caesarian section and in the process decides to and the doctor for his own personal reasons decides to take uterus, then battery has occurred. Further battery occurs when the doctor allows the his visiting housewife to help with the operation, this is because the consent to the procedure only entails persons to who the patient agreed to and not persons she could not have anticipated take part in the process.

Intent is another principle relevant to the tort of trespass to the person. It means that the person carrying out the tortuous act desires the consequences of his action. The American law institute further echoes this definition by construing intent to mean the consequences of the act rather than the act itself. There are various types of intents depending on the nature of one’s action consequences. Specific intent refers to a situation where A intended the actions arising from his conduct.

A good example is when A, loads a gun, aims and fires at B. The subjective state that person A intended the consequence of his actions. General intent on the other hand refers to a situation where the consequences are far more reaching than the original though the actor was certain, or substantially certain of a degree of consequence. Then in such a case the law will conclude that he intended the magnitude of the consequences of his action. However, if the probability of a consequence occurring are minimal, then he the law will construe that it was mere negligence.

Transferred intent occurs in a situation where a person A intends to assault person B but in the process, batters person C. There law will transfer intentions of A as to intending to also batter C. This was established in the case of Livingston v Ministry of defenc [1984] NILR 356 , A intended to hit B with a Baton, he accidentally missed and hit C instead. It was held that A battered C. The doctrine of transfer intent occurs in the cases of assault and battery, where an intended assault becomes a battery after the