Battery
Battery is the intentional infliction of a harmful or offensive bodily contact.
13. Battery
An actor is subject to liability to another for battery if they act intending to cause a harmful or offensive bodily contact with another person, and a harmful or offensive bodily contact results. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 13 (1965).
- The elements of battery are (1) intent to cause a harmful or offensive bodily contact with another person; (2) a harmful or offensive bodily contact occurs; and (3) the defendant’s action caused the contact.
- The defendant’s act must be voluntary.
- The intent requirement includes either purpose (desire) or knowledge to a substantial certainty that a harmful or offensive contact will occur.
- The majority rule determines whether the contact that was intended is harmful by looking at the subjective intent of the defendant. For example, a delusional patient who believes that they are handing a vase to their nurse but who actually throws the vase at the nurse does not have the requisite intent for a battery.
- By contrast, the offensiveness of an intended contact can be evaluated objectively, not by the subjective judgment of the actor.
- Evidence of a harmless motivation, such as that the action was taken in good-natured tomfoolery, or as a joke, does not negate the potential finding of the requisite intent.
- As with negligence (concept 8), causation is typically established by showing that the defendant’s action was a “but for” cause of the contact.
- The contact may occur directly or indirectly as long as the defendant’s action was a but-for cause.
Battery is the intentional infliction of a harmful or offensive bodily contact. Harmfulness is judged by the defendant's subjective intent; offensiveness is judged objectively; and a harmless motive does not erase intent.
Battery is the intentional infliction of a harmful or offensive bodily contact. Break it into three pieces and the whole concept gets simple.
- 1Intent: the defendant acts either wanting the contact (purpose) or knowing the contact is substantially certain to happen (knowledge). Either one is enough.
- 2A harmful or offensive contact actually occurs.
- 3The defendant's act caused that contact, using the same but-for test you already know from negligence. The contact can be direct, like a punch, or indirect, like setting in motion something that ends up touching the plaintiff.
Now the two pieces that separate the easy questions from the hard ones. Harmfulness and offensiveness are measured by different yardsticks. Whether an intended contact is harmful is judged by the defendant's own subjective intent. That is why the delusional patient who throws the vase, genuinely believing they are gently handing it over, has not committed a battery: subjectively, they never intended a harmful contact. But whether a contact is offensive is judged objectively, by the reasonable-person standard, not by what the defendant personally thought was acceptable.
Keep the yardsticks straight: harmfulness rides on the defendant's subjective intent, offensiveness on the objective reasonable person. And a harmless motive, the practical joke or good-natured prank, does not erase intent; if you intended the contact and a reasonable person would find it offensive, the joke label changes nothing.
"Harmful is in the head; offensive is in the world." Harmfulness rides on the defendant's subjective intent; offensiveness is measured objectively by the reasonable person.
"A joke is still a battery." Good-natured motive, tomfoolery, meaning no harm: none of it negates intent.
Intent is about the contact, not the kindness behind it.
"Purpose or substantial certainty." You do not need desire.
Knowing the contact is substantially certain is enough.
Intended contact + reasonable person says offensive (or defendant subjectively meant harm) + the act caused it = battery, even with no injury and no bad heart.
A man at an office party wants a quiet coworker to loosen up, so as a joke he yanks the coworker's necktie hard, snapping the coworker's head forward. No bruise, no lasting injury, and the man is all smiles. Battery?
Suppose instead a man genuinely and reasonably believes he is tapping his own friend on the shoulder in a dark room, but he has the wrong person and the stranger is alarmed.
An option judges OFFENSIVENESS by what the defendant personally thought was acceptable, or judges HARMFULNESS by a reasonable-person/objective view of the contact.
Keep the yardsticks straight: harmfulness is measured by the defendant's subjective intent; offensiveness is measured objectively by the reasonable person.An option defeats the claim because the act was 'only a joke,' 'meant no harm,' or 'good-natured fun.'
A harmless motivation, including a joke or tomfoolery, does not negate the requisite intent. The friendly motive is true but legally irrelevant.An option denies battery because the plaintiff suffered no physical injury, or because the defendant never touched the plaintiff, or because the defendant did not desire the result.
Injury is not required for an offensive contact; contact may be indirect through a but-for chain; and knowledge to a substantial certainty satisfies intent without desire.An option reaches the correct yes/no but anchors it on the plaintiff's subjective offense, the defendant's good motive, or the bare fact of contact.
Name the operative rule: liability turns on intended contact plus objective offensiveness (or subjective intent to harm) plus causation, not on feelings, motive, or contact alone.the stem hands you a deliberate physical contact (or an indirect force the actor set in motion) plus one of two giveaways.
Either the defendant insists it was a joke, an accident of motive, or that no harm was meant (run the harmless-motive and subjective/objective split), or the stem stresses that no injury occurred (remember offensive contact needs no injury).
Whenever you see "meant no harm," "only a prank," or "the defendant believed it was acceptable," ask the right question: for harm, look at the defendant's subjective intent; for offense, look at the reasonable person.
If the contact was intended and a reasonable person would find it offensive, the friendly motive is noise.
A nursing-home resident with a severe cognitive impairment genuinely believed he was passing a heavy ceramic mug across a table to an aide so she could refill it. In fact he flung the mug, which struck the aide and bruised her arm. Medical testimony established that, because of his condition, he sincerely intended only to hand the mug over and had no awareness that it would hit her. The aide sued the resident for battery.
Is the aide likely to prevail on her battery claim?
A gym trainer, convinced that firm physical correction motivates clients, walked up behind a new member during a workout and, without asking, slapped the back of the member's head to fix her posture. The member was startled and humiliated but suffered no injury. The trainer insisted that in his view a quick head slap is a perfectly acceptable coaching technique. The member sued the trainer for battery.
Is the member likely to prevail on her battery claim?
As a prank to amuse their coworkers, an employee crept up behind another worker in the break room and dumped a cup of ice water down the back of the worker's shirt. The employee meant it purely as good-natured fun and laughed along with everyone else. The drenched worker was not physically hurt but was angry and embarrassed, and sued the employee for battery.
Is the drenched worker likely to prevail on the battery claim?
Annoyed that fans kept crowding a stage door, a security guard hurled a full water bottle into the dense crowd to scatter it. He did not aim at anyone in particular and hoped to hit no one, but he knew the crowd was so tightly packed that the bottle was almost certain to strike someone. The bottle hit a waiting fan in the face and cut her lip. She sued the guard for battery.
Is the fan likely to prevail on her battery claim?
Wanting a rival to fail an important presentation, a coworker secretly stirred a strong laxative into the rival's coffee, intending the rival to drink it and become ill. The rival drank the coffee, became violently sick, and missed the presentation. The coworker never physically touched the rival and pointed out that the rival poured and drank the coffee himself. The rival sued the coworker for battery.
Is the rival likely to prevail on the battery claim?
A colleague, congratulating a coworker on a promotion, gave the coworker an ordinary pat on the shoulder. Unknown to the colleague, the coworker had a deep personal aversion to being touched by anyone and was greatly upset. The colleague intended the friendly pat. A reasonable person would not have found a brief congratulatory shoulder pat offensive. The coworker sued the colleague for battery.
Is the coworker likely to prevail on the battery claim?