Battery is an intentional tort. Meaning, the tortfeasor acted with an intention to commit the tort. It is when a person intentionally inflicts a harmful or offensive contact with the victim. Basically, a person commits a physical act that either physically hurts another person, or the act is offensive.
This must be intentional, meaning the tortious conduct must be intentional. For instance, if I swing my fist in an attempt to strike a person's nose and hit it, that is intentional. If I am pointing and making a gesture to try and show a person how to get to the subway and accidentally strike somebody in the nose as a result, that is not intent for the purpose of the intentional tort of battery.
My actions must be intended to inflict the harmful or offensive contact, or I must realize that such contact is substantially certain that the contact will result. Either one condition or the other must apply.
Merely being careless is not intentional. It may be negligence, which is a different tort, but the intentional tort of battery does not apply when the defendant was careless.
Even if I have noble intentions, if I fulfill all the other requirements of the tort of battery, good intentions is not a defense. For instance, a person may, for religious reasons, refuse blood transfusions. Even if I am trying to save a person's life, if I have been made aware of this refusal, I would be guilty of battery if I give you a transfusion.
If I attempt to batter one person, but instead, I batter a different person than the person I intended to batter, this is considered "transferred intent" and it is still a battery. For instance, if I try to throw a brick at Mike, but it hits Alex instead, that is still assault, but with "transferred intent". The fact that I did not try to hit Alex does not remove the "intent" portion of the tort.
However, if I throw a brick at a person who I THINK is Mike, but it turns out to be Alex, that is not transferred intent. That is part of the doctrine of mistake. I made a mistake as to who I was throwing the brick at, but it hit the person I was aiming at. Just like transferred intent, doctrine of mistake is not a defense. I am still guilty of battery.
Also, if I attempt to commit a battery, but miss, transferred intent could be a component of the tort of assault. For instance, if I try to hit you, but I miss, if you were frightened by the attempt, then I am probably guilty of assault, even though I did not TRY to assault you. I tried to batter you.
The contact, to be harmful, must injure another person, impair their body functions or cause them illness. Even if contact is not harmful, it may be battery if it is offensive.
So, pinching a member of the opposite sex on the butt is battery if a reasonable person would find it offensive. Offensive is defined as contact which would offend a reasonable person's sense of dignity.
Regardless of my intentions, even if I meant no harm, it is battery if a reasonable person would find the contact to be offensive.
Battery:
-Battery is defined as the "intentional infliction of a harmful or offensive contact with the person of the plaintiff.
-No contact is intentional if it is not the result of a voluntary act.
-The tortfeasor must act fot the purpose of inflicting a harmful or offensive contact on the plaintiff or realize that such contact is substantially certain to result.
-Intent denotes that the actor desires to cause the consequences of his act, or that he believes that the consequences are substantially certain to result from it.
-The intent requirement convines intentional tort liability to cases in which the defendant acts with a higher purpose than mere carelessness.
-The intent requirement is disjunctive. It is met either by a purpose to cause the tortious contact or substantial certainty that such a contact will result.
-A battery can be committed with the best of motives.
-transferred intent: where the actor tries to batter one person and actually causes a harmful or offensive contact with another. Actor is liable to the actual victim.
-transferred intent also allows recovery when the actor attempts one intentional tort but causes another.
-Bodily harm is any physical impairment of the condition of another's body or physical pain or illness.
-Even if the contact is not harmful, it is tortious if it is offensive.
-offensive is if the contact would offend a reasonable sense of personal dignity.
-If a reasonable person would find the contact offensive, it is not a defense that no offense was intended or the actor didn't realize contact would be offensive to the victim.
-The actor must intend the consequenses of the act. "consequences" refers to the harmful or offensive contact, not the injuries that result from it.
Contact with an object intimately associated with a person's body will satisfy the "contact" requirement for battery
For Battery, victim need not suffer any resulting harm to have a claim; the intrusion itself is actionable
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