Submit Files - Assault, Battery & Intentional Torts
Start Date: Jan 23, 2012 Deadline: Jan 29, 2012
M. Kathryn Forehand
Jan. 26, 2012
Submit Files - Assault, Battery & Intentional Torts
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Folder: Assault, Battery & Intentional Torts
Instructions: Search the Internet for sites related to intentional torts, especially torts such as
intentional infliction of emotional distress, malicious prosecution, assault, battery, etc.
Prepare a list of at least 5 web sites, with a short summary of the sites, and how these
sites provide accurate/inaccurate information about the topic.
Start Date: Jan 23, 2012 12:01 AM
Deadline: Jan 29, 2012 11:59 PM
Attachments:
Submit Files - Assault, Battery & Intentional Torts
Start Date: Jan 23, 2012 Deadline: Jan 29, 2012
M. Kathryn Forehand
Jan. 26, 2012
Assault, Battery & Intentional Torts
Instructions: Search the Internet for sites related to intentional torts, especially torts such as intentional infliction of emotional
distress, malicious prosecution, assault, battery, etc. Prepare a list of at least 5 web sites, with a short summary of the sites, and how
these sites provide accurate/inaccurate information about the topic.
#1
Website: http://www.lawnix.com/cases/garratt-dailey.html
From Website:
Facts: Five year old Brian Dailey (D) pulled a chair out from under Ruth Garratt just as she was about to sit causing her to fall and
break her hip. Garratt brought suit for personal injuries and alleged that Dailey had acted deliberately. The trial court entered
judgment for Dailey and found that he had not intended to injure Garratt. The court nevertheless made a finding of $11,000 in
damages in case the judgment was overturned on appeal. Dailey appealed.
Issues
1. In regards to the intentional tort of battery, is the element of intent satisfied if the defendant knows with a substantial
certainty that his act will result in a harmful or offensive contact?
2. Can a five year old child be liable for an intentional tort?
Holding and Rule
1. Yes. In regards to the intentional tort of battery, the element of intent is satisfied if the defendant knows with a substantial
certainty that his act will result in a harmful or offensive contact.
2. Yes. A five year old child can be liable for an intentional tort.
A minor is liable just as any other person when he has committed an intentional tort with force.
Summary:
Where I do not know the age of the victim, it can be assumed that she is older than the defendant due to the fact that her
hip was easily broken. In this case, a child of whom did not know any better; pulled a chair out from under an unsuspecting person
causing injury. Where it was argued that the child did not mean any harm, as a child would not be able to properly understand the
consequences, he was still held responsible for his actions. I find this case, while very brief in description, to be helpful to me as I
was unaware and could have assumed that a minor can be held liable for any issue. I had come to a belief that in a majority of cases
it is normally the parent that is held liable for the minors’ actions.
#2
Website: http://www.howielaw.com/cases/intentional-tort-cases.htm
From Website:
Venue: San Francisco County
Jury Verdict/Result: Summary Judgment
Case Name: Fullah v. Stonestown Galleria, Sam Goody's
Description: Plaintiff was a patron of a record store at a mall in San Francisco. He was asked to leave the store following a verbal
altercation with the store manager, originally alleged to be a physical fight. Plaintiff was later arrested by mall security and taken into
custody by the San Francisco Police Department. He sued the store and the mall alleging (1) assault and battery; (2) false
imprisonment; (3) negligence; (4) intentional infliction of emotional distress; (5) negligent hiring; (6) negligent infliction of emotional
distress. Summary judgment was obtained for our client, Sam Goody's, on the grounds that (1) reports to police are privileged, (2)
the qualified privilege of a common interest report, and (3) the plaintiff's deposition testimony contradicted the allegations in the
complaint of intentional torts, including false imprisonment, assault & battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Summary:
I found this case to be pretty summarized in itself. This case does not seem to have a lot of information at all and seems
to be a little complicated to understand. The description of this is very basic and only describes that there was an altercation that
cannot be properly determined as to what kind. After first read I could not determine if there was a verdict but after rereading the
description I noticed that while the employee sued the mall and store, the store was the victor stating that they were in the right as to
protect themselves. It also didn’t help the plaintiff’s statements did not support anything he was arguing.
#3
Website: http://www.marylandmalpracticelawyers.com/2010/02/police-officer-cannot-claim-immunity-for-intentional-torts.html
From Website:
“Police Officer Cannot Claim Immunity For Intentional Torts” By Alan J. Belsky February 21, 2010 11:13 AM
On February 19, 2010, Maryland's highest court issued its decision in the case of Houghton v. Forrest, holding that a
Baltimore City police officer cannot claim immunity from suit for intentional acts of assault, battery, false arrest and false
Submit Files - Assault, Battery & Intentional Torts
Start Date: Jan 23, 2012 Deadline: Jan 29, 2012
M. Kathryn Forehand
Jan. 26, 2012
imprisonment. This ruling is an important victory for Maryland citizens who are subjected to these types of harm at the hands of a
public official.
In the Houghton case, the officer had witnessed a drug sale in Baltimore City while monitoring a security camera feed.
One of the participants in the drug deal was a woman wearing a black jacket, dark jeans and was carrying a red umbrella. Houghton
instructed another officer to arrest the alleged drug sale participants. He lost sight of the woman during the arrest. While continuing
to scan the video feed, Houghton saw a woman standing at a bus stop, wearing different colored pants and jacket, but carrying a red
umbrella. Even though this woman clearly did not match the description of the woman first identified in the video, Houghton
instructed the officer to arrest her. She was eventually released from custody and subsequently filed suit against Houghton and the
Baltimore City Police Department, alleging both negligence and a variety of intentional torts. A jury awarded her more than
$180,000.00 in damages. The officer appealed the verdict, arguing that he was immune from suit for intentional tort and because
there was not sufficient evidence presented that he had acted with malice, which he argued is a necessary element to prove
intentional harm.
The Court of Special Appeals, Maryland's intermediate appellate court, disagreed with Houghton, finding that a public
official is not immune from suit for intentional torts, but also found that there was not sufficient evidence presented to find the
officer acted with malice. Both parties appealed this decision
The Court of Appeals made clear in its decision that public officials, like this police officer, cannot seek immunity from
suit if their actions are found to be intentional. The Court did not specifically decide the issue as to whether sufficient evidence was
presented to prove malice because the Court found that under the Local Government Tort Claims Act, the government is
responsible to pay any judgment against the officer so long as the judgment did not include punitive damages, which requires a
finding of malice. In this case, the jury did not award punitive damages.
This case is important for the citizens of Maryland. Victims of police brutality and misconduct may recover damages
from these officers without the possibility that the officers will try to hide behind the "immunity shield".
Summary:
My first thought when I read the topic of this article was, “there’s no way…” then after reading the first paragraph was,
“WHAT??!! Seriously?? You’re joking right? How could an officer really think he is ‘immune’?”. I had actually decided then to ask
a personally known former police officer, who stated that when going through the academy training, it is not always stated what part
in law suits you play while on duty. So it can be claimed unclear that the officer understood he is not immune. I then read on to
finish the article and here are the rest of my thoughts: The officer himself could have protected himself from this issue while still
doing his job properly by requesting that the lady who may have fit the description come in for questioning of the event happening
very near to her at the time. It would have protected the officer from a lawsuit claiming intentional torts. He would not have had to
claim there is no proof of action with malice as the action itself would have been proof of the intent to obtain information. While I
do personally think that the reason he did not come to this conclusion and why he thought he was “immune” is because he may not
be properly trained in law, I do believe that the writer of this article may not have all of the proper facts of the events and may have
a bias opinion against officers resulting in readers as well having a bias opinion of the Maryland officers.
#4
Website: http://www.skipsimpson.com/chron.html
From Website:
5.8 million awarded in lawsuit, claims therapists implanted false memories of satanic ritual abuse
By MARK SMITH Copyright 1997 Houston Chronicle
A jury awarded nearly $5.8 million Friday to a woman who claimed her family was torn apart when her psychotherapy
produced false memories of satanic ritual abuse. The judgment is believed the largest among several handed down in recent years
against therapists accused of implanting false memories of sexual abuse, often involving a satanic cult. Many other such suits filed
around the country have been settled out of court. Jurors in U.S. District Judge Ewing Werlein Jr.'s court, who were given the case
on Wednesday, said they reached a general consensus in favor of plaintiff Lynn Carl during the first few minutes of their
deliberations. But they said it took longer to arrive at the amount of their judgment against Dr. Gloria Keraga and other details of
the verdict. "This verdict validates my story, and I hope gives strength to those other patients who have suffered similar abuse," said
Carl, 46, who during psychotherapy came to believe she had practiced murder, cannibalism, sexual abuse and incest. Carl's
attorney, Skip Simpson, argued during the trial that therapists implanted false memories that worsened Carl's condition so they
could collect more than $1.1 million in insurance. "This case was all about creating victims so the mental health field could have
patients and expensive treatment," he said. The jury found that Keraga bore 12 percent of the liability in the case, with a number of
others identified as sharing the blame for negligence. All the other defendants previously settled with Carl or were dropped. Keraga
and her attorneys declined comment and gave no indication of whether they would appeal. During the trial, Keraga, 44, testified
that she didn't know if the specific memories Carl recovered in therapy were true, but said she believed the "gist" of them. One of
Keraga's attorneys, Suzan Cardwell, argued the medical care Keraga provided Carl was a reasonable effort to help the patient work
Submit Files - Assault, Battery & Intentional Torts
Start Date: Jan 23, 2012 Deadline: Jan 29, 2012
M. Kathryn Forehand
Jan. 26, 2012
through severe emotional problems. Carl is one of more than a dozen patients who filed lawsuits against therapists at the former
Spring Shadows Glen Hospital in Houston. The patients allege that therapists planted false memories of abuse after the patients
were diagnosed with multiple personality disorder. Several jurors said they were concerned Keraga and other Spring Shadows Glen
therapists failed to warn their patients about the risks of the treatment. "I think most of us felt red flags should have gone up quickly
during therapy," said juror Joe Kemper, 42. He also said that in reviewing medical records presented during the trial, jurors found
no evidence that Carl was improving despite her expensive treatment. "I couldn't figure it out," Kemper said. "When did the
treatment end? It just went on and on." "Dr. Keraga didn't specialize in satanic ritual abuse, but she had the power to stop treatment
that wasn't helping her patients," added juror Robert Swan, 31. In 1993, Spring Shadows Glen closed the dissociative disorders unit,
where such patients were treated, after state authorities cited the hospital for excessive use of physical restraints on patients,
censorship of patient mail and phone calls and, in one case, making a patient's discharge contingent upon safety from a "satanic cult."
The hospital now is under different ownership and has been renamed Memorial Spring Shadows Glen. Carl, who suffered from
depression, testified that during her therapy at Spring Shadows Glen from May 1991 to March 1993, she became convinced she
had developed more than 500 personalities because of repressed memories of involvement with a satanic cult. Therapists never
warned her the memories she recovered through hypnosis and other forms of psychotherapy might be unreliable, she testified. And
they told her that unless she continued recovering memories about the abuse, she would remain in denial and her children
"wouldn't get well," Carl testified. Carl's children -- Kristi, then 13, and B.J., 14 -- entered the hospital a year after Carl began her stay
there. They were admitted for evaluation after Carl's allegations that they had been abused. B.J. came to believe he was
programmed to die by age 16, and Kristi believed she was a "breeder" for the cult, according to testimony. They also believed they
had committed incest. Before she left the hospital, Carl signed a letter to Children's Protective Services, claiming she and other cult
members abused her children "sexually, physically, verbally and emotionally." Carl said these false memories led to divorce from
her husband and a court order preventing her from seeing her children. Upon her release from Spring Shadows Glen, Carl went
through treatment in Florida and Maryland before reuniting with her husband, Joe, and their children. In April 1996, the couple
remarried. Keraga's attorney, Cardwell, pointed to testimony from several therapists that the Carl situation represented a "classic
pedophile" case in which the perpetrators and victims later deny the sexual abuse. Describing members of the family as "evil,"
Cardwell said Simpson and Carl hoped to "make money off this sexual abuse." She said Carl demonstrated symptoms of abuse and
that "evidence is overwhelming" that the Carl family had practiced incest. Referring to Carl's journals and medical records describing
bizarre sexual abuse, murder and torture, Cardwell said such memories could not be falsely implanted. Although no specific
corroborative evidence was submitted during the trial, Cardwell suggested that the "cult" described in the medical records could be
the Carl family. Treatment for mental illness linked to "repressed memories" soared during the 1980s and early 1990s as hundreds
of patients reported that psychotherapy had brought forth memories of childhood abuse. Since then, many patients have alleged
that they are victims of "false memory syndrome" -- memories of events that didn't happen, which were implanted or suggested by
overzealous therapists trying to cash in on generous insurance benefits.
Summary: This article I actually had to really search for as I remember in the news something like this happening recently. It
astonished me that something like this could happen so I read the entire story to see what was going on. This article is not the same
story but actually has a lot of the same details. The main common detail is that the victim suffered from suppressed memories
coming forth of child abuse, satanic rituals and sacrifices. I believe that this article does cover a lot of information as to what
happened and what each side claims, however I do not believe that the article covers enough about the inner workings of whether
or not this could actually happen. I have seen arguments that are used in cases like this in recent years that argue that some
memories cannot be suppressed so severely and then come forth far into adult hood as well as arguments stating that hypnosis is not
effective enough to completely create memories from nowhere, that they have to have a basis already in place of an existing
memory. I personally believe that anything is possible as some people believe that dreams actually happened even though there is
no basis for the events. I also believe that the brain and conscious and subconscious are both so immensely complex that they
cannot be understood completely. I do believe there is a possibility of this happening and believe that the judgment was proper. I
do wonder what of the case and the arguments were left out of this article however.
#5
Website: http://www.lawnix.com/cases/talmage-smith.html
From Website:
Facts: Talmage (P) and several other children were playing on the roofs of sheds on Smith’s (D) property. Smith ordered the
children to get down and threw a stick at one of the boys. The stick missed its intended target and struck Talmage in the eye.
Talmage lost all sight in the eye and sued for battery to recover for personal injuries.
Evidence was offered showing that Smith threw the stick intending to frighten (i.e. assault) but not hit a different boy. The trial court
entered judgment for Talmage and Smith appealed on the grounds that he did not have the intent to hit Talmage and was therefore
not liable for battery.
Issue: If an actor intends to inflict an intentional tort upon one party and accidentally harms a second party, can the actor be held
liable to the second party for battery?
Holding and Rule: Yes. If an actor intends to inflict an intentional tort upon one party and accidentally harms a second party, the
actor can be held liable to the second party for battery under the doctrine of transferred intent.
Submit Files - Assault, Battery & Intentional Torts
Start Date: Jan 23, 2012 Deadline: Jan 29, 2012
M. Kathryn Forehand
Jan. 26, 2012
If an actor intends an act against a party and that act impacts upon another the actor is liable for the injuries suffered. The fact that
the injury resulted to a party other than was intended does not relieve the defendant from responsibility. Smith will not be relieved
of liability because he intended to injure someone else.
Disposition: Affirmed.
Transferred Intent: The transferred intent torts under common law are: assault, battery, false imprisonment, trespass to land, and
trespass to chattels. If an actor has the intent to commit any of the transferred intent torts, the actor will be liable for all other
transferred intent torts that result from that act. The actor’s liability extends to all parties harmed, not merely the original intended
victim.
Summary: This case does show that even if an intentional action is altered, it can still be viewed as the initial intention. I think that
this case does have a good amount of information as transferred intent may not be understood very well unless researched properly
or with proper representation. While this case does not state a judgment, I believe that the facts in this case do cover all essential
information for a judgment.