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.
False Imprisonment
Purpose
• False Imprisonment protects our personal liberty (in a physical sense).
Requirements
1) Imprisonment – complete restriction of C’s freedom of movement.
2) D must intend the restriction of C’s freedom of movement.
3) “False” – The restriction must be unlawful.
• Tort Law, Kirsty and Rackley, Ch 15, Pg. 422 = “There is no need to show force, though a claimant must not be
taken to be consenting to the imprisonment simply because they do not resist”
Key Case: Complete Restriction
Bird v Jones (1845) 7 QB 742
• Facts: Concerns a boat race going alone a waterway; part of the public highway had been closed to allow people
to congregate there to watch the race. C wanted to walk along the closed road, but was stopped as it was closed.
• Issue: C brough an action for false imprisonment.
• Held: Claim failed.
o Patteson J at 752:
“Imprisonment is, as I apprehend, a total restraint of the liberty of the person, for however short a time, and
not a partial obstruction of his will, whatever inconvenience it may bring on him.”
Key Case:
Prison Officers Association v Iqbal
• Facts: Iqbal is being lawfully detained in prison; while there he is let out of his cell for a period of time each day.
Prison officers carried out a strike action and Iqbal was not let out of his cell that day.
• Issue: He brought an action for false imprisonment through omission.
o Lord Neuberger MR at [1]:
“Does a claim for false imprisonment lie against prison officers who take unlawful strike action, if that action
results in a prisoner, who would otherwise have been permitted by the prison governor to leave his cell for the
purpose of working, exercise and health care, being confined to his cell?”
• Held: No.
o Smith LJ:
“[69] I consider that there is much force in [the] submission that, save in particular circumstances, the tort of
false imprisonment is not committed by omission or by refusal to act. Those particular circumstances were
satisfied in the Brockhill Prison case where there was a right to be released and a duty to release. I do not
think it would be right to extend those particular circumstances to cases where the right and the duty were
anything other than clear.”
o Sullivan LJ, dissenting, at [103]:
“In my judgement, insofar as there is a conflict between the prisoners' right not to be deprived of that liberty by
persons, including prison officers, acting otherwise than in accordance with the prison governor's authority,
and the right of prison officers (absent any statutory prohibition) to strike, the former right must take
precedence over the latter. While the right to strike is important, the right not to be falsely imprisoned is of
fundamental importance.”
