This document contains all the necessary lecture and textbook notes for the topic of Assault and Battery.
Covers the requirements of Assault and Battery, while supplementing with case law.
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Intentional Torts: ‘Trespass to the Person’
Introduction
Outline of this Topic of ‘Actionable Harm’: Wrongs to the Person
1. Introduction
2. Trespass to the Person = this is the umbrella tort.
• Battery
• Assault
• False Imprisonment
3. Defences
4. The rule in Wilkinson v Downton
5. Protection from Harassment Act 1997 = we will study the civil wrongs created under this Act.
Key Concepts of these Torts:
• Tort and Crime are different things.
o Lord Carswell in Ashley v Chief Constable of Sussex [2008] UKHL 25 at [76]:
“[There] is a clear difference between the aims of the two branches of the law. The criminal law has moved in
recent years in the direction of emphasising individual responsibility...
The function of the civil law is quite distinct. It is to provide a framework for compensation for wrongs which holds
the balance fairly between the conflicting rights and interests of different people.”
• The general rule:
o Do not cite crime cases in Tort, or Tort cases in crime.
o EXCEPT where there is overlap (such as if the case is
on a Tort lecture handout).
• Concurrent Liability:
o A. Burrows (ed), English Private Law, 2nd ed (2008),
para 17.246, endorsed by Lord Rodger of Earlsferry in
Ashley v Chief Constable of Sussex Police [2008] UKHL
25 at [56].
“English law has no objection to concurrent liability …
between one wrong and another”.
o In other words, a claimant can bring forwards as many
claims in tort from the same defendant if they want.
Trespass to the person:
• Goff LJ in Collins v Wilcock [1984] 3 All ER 374 at 377-8:
“An assault is an act which causes another person to apprehend the infliction of immediate, unlawful, force on his
person; a battery is the actual infliction of unlawful force on another person. … false imprisonment … is the
unlawful imposition of constraint on another's freedom of movement from a particular place.”
o Assault = C ‘apprehended’ (thought something would happen) ‘immediate, unlawful, force’ (force does not
have to include a forceful act, it can just be a touching act). I.e. making someone think you are about to touch
them, but it doesn’t actually happen.
o Battery = the same thing as assault, but the touching does happen.
‘Intentional Torts’:
• The torts which we are examining are “intentional” torts.
• This requires deliberate conduct.
• In trespass to the person, it does not mean that the defendant needs to intend to commit a tort:
o Wilson v Pringle [1987] 1 QB 237 at 249
“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.”
States of Mind:
• Recklessness and carelessness are only needed for negligence torts.
• In ‘Trespass to Person’ torts, intention is required, not the lower 2 states of mind.
, Assault and Battery: What is the purpose of these Torts?
• Both Assault and Battery protect aspects of our personal integrity.
1. Battery protects our bodily integrity.
2. Assault protects the right not to be put in fear of unlawful invasion of our integrity.
Key Case: Collins v Wilcock [1984] 3 All ER 374
• Facts: A female police officer approached 2 females on the street believing them to be prostitutes. One woman
walked away while swearing at the officer. The officer takes hold of the women’s arm; however she wasn’t under
arrest.
• Issue: Was the officers action of holding the woman’s arm to restrain her and stop her moving, battery?
• Held: The CoA held the officers’ actions did amount as battery. The police have special powers of arrest, but
where those powers are not being applied, the law applies equally to the police.
o Robert Goff LJ at 378:
“The fundamental principle, plain and incontestable, is that every person's body is inviolate.
… every man's person being sacred, and no other having a right to meddle with it, in any the slightest
manner…The effect is that everybody is protected not only against physical injury but against any form of physical
molestation.”
Key Case: Ashley v Chief Constable of Sussex [2008] UKHL 25
• Facts: Mr Ashley was shot by police and killed; the police had planned to raid his home for an investigation. They
had been warned beforehand that he had been involved in firearm offences and armed robbery. The raid occurred
at night, so it was dark in the apartment. One officer saw him, he was moving quickly towards the officer who
fearing for his life, shot him, fatally injuring him.
• Issue: The officer was initially accused of murder, but was later acquitted. The family of Ashley brought forwards a
number of torts against the police, including; assault, battery, false imp, negligence and misfeasance. The police
accepted they were liable for negligence and false imp, but refused liability for battery. The family still sought
battery in the civil courts despite them not being able to recover anymore compensation as they wanted a
declaration that the police had acted unlawfully to vindicate Ashley.
• Held: The courts had to decide whether the claim for assault and battery should be allowed to continue given that
no further compensation was available and the defences available (self-defence).
o Lord Rodger at [60]:
“A claimant has no cause of action in negligence unless he has suffered injury or damage. By contrast, battery or
trespass to the person is actionable without proof that the victim has suffered anything other than the infringement
of his right to bodily integrity: the law vindicates that right by awarding nominal damages.”
o The claim was allowed, and nominal damages are awarded in cases where no compensation can be given,
where the family are only seeking vindication that the police had acted wrongly.
o A claim for vindicatory damages did survive the deceased under the 1934 Act. Lord Scott said:
‘Although the principal aim of an award of compensatory damages is to compensate the claimant for loss suffered,
there is no reason in principle why an award of compensatory damages should not also fulfil a vindicatory
purpose. But it is difficult to see how compensatory damages can could ever fulfil a vindicatory purpose in a case
of alleged assault where liability for the assault were denied and a trial of that issue never took place.’
Battery
Battery: Requirements
1) Application of direct and immediate force.
2) Intention on the part of the defendant = an intention (setting out) to apply force to another person; or recklessness
as to (foreseeing the likelihood of) one’s actions causing the application of force to another person.
3) The application must be unlawful.
• Lord Hoffman in Wainwright v Home Office [2003] at [67] = The essence of the wrong is the “invasion of the
physical person of the [claimant]”
• Tort Law, Horsey and Rackley, Ch 15, Pg. 414 = “There is no need to show that the D caused the C actual harm
or injury by touching them, or indeed that they intended to cause them harm or injury. As such any unwanted
physical touching …can amount to battery …nor does it matter why the touching occurred”
• Colins v Wilcock [1984] 3 All ER 374 at 1177= the force must exceed “physical contact which is generally
acceptable in the ordinary conduct of daily life”.
Key Case: Direct and Immediate Force
Scott v Shepherd (1773) 2 Wm. B1.892, 96 Eng Rep. 525
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