ICC Outline- Battery element (3)
“Contact must be harmful or offensive” Once contact has been established, its character
becomes the focus:
• Harmful contact
• Offensive contact
..once contact has been made it must be either, or both, harmful or offensive
Harmful contact:
•
•
bodily physical harm, physical pain, or illness
for example, lacerations, bruises or fractured bones
Offensive Contact: contact that offends through violating prevailing social norms,
expectations, and standards of one with a reasonable sense of personal dignity.
•
Paul v. Holbrook: The time, place, circumstances, and relations of the parties
involved under which the act was done will effect the judgement on whether the
contact was offensive or not.
o I.e., Paul v. Holbrook; the parties were in an office setting, alone, and had
a professional relationship
o The contact may be offensive under certain circumstances and
permissible in others depending on who is being touched, who is doing the
touching, the relationship between them, and setting under which the
contact occurs.
•
The test, unless “the defendant has special reason to believe that more or less
will be permitted by the individual plaintiff” is what would be offensive to an
ordinary person, not someone overly sensitive to personal dignity.