These notes are aimed at 1st-year tort law students. They go into lots of detail on the areas such as assault, battery, and false imprisonment, and also go on to consider harassment. The notes contain hundreds of key cases for the 1st-year exam.
TRESPASS TO THE PERSON
GENERAL OVERVIEW
Trespass can be to goods, land, person
All 3 must: be committed intentionally, cause direct & immediate harm, & are actionable per se (without
proof of damage)
Collins v Wilcock gives definitions of the 3 main torts:
BATTERY: the actual infliction of unlawful force on another person
ASSAULT: an act which causes another person to apprehend the infliction of immediate, unlawful force on his
person (i.e. causes you to fear you will be battered)
FALSE IMPRISONMENT: the unlawful imposition of constraint upon another’s freedom of movement from a
battery place
WHY HAVE TRESPASS TORTS?
Compensation and corrective justice
o Damage isn’t trigger for compensation – it is the wrongful actions of the defendant in
interfering with a recognised legal interest possessed by the claimant
Vindication
o Vindicate the C’s right to be free from interference either to his/her person, property or
goods
o Ashley v Chief Constable of Sussex
Armed raid lead to death of suspect
Claim brought by his dependents on alternative bases: in negligence and assault and
battery
Sussex police admitted liability in negligence (failed to reach reasonable standard of
police force
Wouldn’t admit trespass (intentionally wrongful)
HL: could remaining case of battery & assault be struck out? No – damages for
trespass not necessarily just about compensation, but vindication. Marking that
somebody has had a wrong done to them, and the wrong was done intentionally.
o Where trespass claim has a vindicatory element, this element is sufficiently satisfied by
merely pronouncing a wrong has been done
o Vindication is one of the reasons that you sue in trespass, but it doesn’t get you any more
money
o R (Lumba v Secretary of State)
2 failed asylum seekers wrongly imprisoned – sued for false imprisonment and
claimed amount representing period of imprisonment + additional sum to vindicate
the wrong done
HL said they couldn’t have additional sum as vindicatory damages, but under
authority of Ashley, court could and should pronounce on whether wrong was
intentional or negligent in order to vindicate the intentional wrong done to the
claimant
Deterrence
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