Assault

R v Ireland

The facts
The defendant (who pleaded guilty to three S47 assaults) made a large number of
silent phone calls over a period of several months to three women. The victims suffered
psychological harm (tearfulness sleeplessness palpitations stress anxiety and
breathing difficulties). Ireland appealed claiming that the judge was wrong in law to
accept his guilty pleas.

Issue:

Is the defendant guilty of assault?

Held:

His conviction was upheld. Silence can amount to an assault and psychiatric injury
can amount to bodily harm.

Lord Steyn

"It is to assault in the form of an act causing the victim to fear an immediate
application of force to her that I must turn. Counsel argued that as a matter of
law an assault can never be committed by words alone and therefore it cannot
be committed by silence. The premise depends on the slenderest authority,
namely, an observation by Holroyd J. to a jury that "no words or singing are
equivalent to an assault": Meade's and Belt's case 1 (1823) 1 Lew. C.C. 184. The
proposition that a gesture may amount to an assault, but that words can never
suffice, is unrealistic and indefensible. A thing said is also a thing done. There
is no reason why something said should be incapable of causing an
apprehension of immediate personal violence, e.g. a man accosting a woman in
a dark alley saying "come with me or I will stab you." I would, therefore, reject
the proposition that an assault can never be committed by words."

Tuberville v Savage

The Facts

Tuberville put his hand upon his sword and said If it were not assize-time, I would not
take such language from you. Assize-time is when the judges were in the town for
court sessions. Savage sued Tuberville for assault.

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Issue: What are the elements of the tort of assault?

Held:

To be liable for assault at least one of the following must be present: 1. an act
intending to cause harmful control to another person, or imminent apprehension, or
2. a third person put in apprehension if he believes the person can do damage. An
assault exists even if the other party can defend against the action and the action is
not inevitable. Mere threats of future harm are insufficient.

In this case the court held that the declaration of Tuberville was that he would not
assault Savage at that point in time. To commit an assault there must be intention
followed by an act. An assault is present if the fear is reasonable. The court held that
in this case there was clearly no intention of assault.

Notes: Threats of future harm are insufficient to establish assault. Conditional threats
may suffice where the defendant has no privilege to assert them.

Battery

Wilson v Pringle

Facts:
The defendant and plaintiff were both school boys. The defendant jumped on the
plaintiff whilst playing around and caused the plaintiff to sustain injury. The plaintiff
claimed damages for battery. The plaintiff claimed that as the defendant had admitted
jumping on the plaintiff there could be no defense.

Held:
The defendant also had to show hostility on the part of the defendant. The question of
hostility was a question of fact and therefore the case should be remitted for trial.

Note:
Croom- Johnson LJ:
in our view in a battery there must be an intentional touching or contact in one
form or another of the plaintiff by the defendant. That touching must be proved to be
hostile touching.

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 Collins v Wilcock

Two police officers on duty in a police car observed two women in the street who
appeared to be soliciting for the purpose of prostitution. One of the women was known
to the police as a prostitute but the other, the appellant, was not a known prostitute.
When the police officers requested the appellant to get into the car for questioning she
refused to do so and instead walked away from the car. One of the officers, a
policewoman, got out of the car and followed the appellant in order to question her
regarding her identity and conduct and to caution her, if she was suspected of being a
prostitute, in accordance with the approved police procedure for administering
cautions for suspicious behaviour before charging a woman with being a prostitute,
contrary to s 1 of the Street Offences Act 1959. The appellant refused to speak to the
policewoman and walked away, whereupon the policewoman took hold of the
appellant's arm to detain her. The appellant then swore at the policewoman and
scratched the officer's arm with her fingernails. The appellant was convicted of
assaulting a police officer in the execution of her duty, contrary to s 51(1) of the Police
Act 1964. She appealed against the conviction, contending that when the assault
occurred the officer was not exercising her power of arrest and was acting beyond the
scope of her duty in detaining the appellant by taking hold of her arm. The police
contended that the officer was acting in the execution of her duty when the assault
occurred because the officer had good cause to detain the appellant for the purpose of
questioning her to see whether a caution for suspicious behaviour should be
administered.

Held

(1) Except when lawfully exercising his power of arrest or some other statutory power a
police officer had no greater rights than an ordinary citizen to restrain another.
Accordingly, whether a police officer's conduct was lawful when detaining a person, to
question him in circumstances where the officer was not exercising his power of arrest
or other statutory power depended on whether the physical contact the officer used to
detain the person was no more than generally acceptable physical contact between two
citizens for the purpose of one of them engaging the attention of the other and as such
was lawful physical contact as between two ordinary citizens. If the conduct used by
the officer went beyond such generally acceptable conduct eg if the officer gripped a
person's arm or shoulder rather than merely laying a hand on his sleeve or tapping his
shoulder, the officer's conduct would constitute the infliction of unlawful force and
thus constitute a battery

(2) The 1959 Act did not confer power on a police officer to stop and detain a woman
who was a prostitute for the purpose of cautioning her. Furthermore, the fact that the
reason an officer detained a woman was to caution her regarding her suspicious
behaviour did not render the officer's conduct lawful if in detaining her he used a

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degree of physical contact that went beyond lawful physical contact as between two
ordinary citizens.

(3) Since the policewoman had not been exercising her power of arrest when she
detained the appellant, and since in taking hold of the appellant's arm to detain her
the policewoman's conduct went beyond acceptable lawful physical contact between
two citizens, it followed that the officer's act constituted a battery on the appellant and
that she had not been acting in the execution of her duty when the assault occurred.
Accordingly the appeal would be allowed and the conviction quashed.

Trespass to Land

Herrin v. Sutherland

Facts
Defendant was hunting while standing on someone elses property. He fired his
shotgun at ducks flying over Plaintiffs land. Plaintiff sued for trespass to his land.
Plaintiff was granted a default judgment, and was ultimately awarded $1 in nominal
damages. The Defendant timely appealed.

Issue
Did the trial court err when it granted Plaintiff nominal damages for the discharge of a
shotgun over his land?

Held
No. The Judgement was affirmed.
* Under Blackstones interpretation, land extends upwards and downwards, giving its
owner rights in its air space
* Air space, at least near the ground, is nearly as subject to protection as is the
ground.

Discussion
The Court confirms that the air space over ones land is subject to protection against
trespass. The Court is not called upon to determine how far such protection might
extend, as the intrusion upon Plaintiffs land occurred merely a few feet off the ground,
but it does suggest that the degree of protection diminishes the further from the
ground it gets.

Hickman V Maisey

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Facts
The defendant, a racing tout, used a highway which ran across the plaintiffs land for
the purpose of watching Ps horses in training and used the information thereby
obtained for the purpose of his business. The effect was to depreciate the value of Ps
land as a place for the training of race horses.

Held
The defendant was held liable for trespass as his use of highway was unreasonable

AL Smith LJ:
The question is what is the lawful use of an highway? Many authorities show that
prima facie the right of the public is to pass and repass along the highway but I quite
agree with Lord Esher MR in Harrison v Duke of Rutland that though it is a slight
extension of the rule as previously stated namely that, though highways are dedicated
prima facie for the purpose of passage things are done upon them by everybody which
are recognized as being rightly done and as constituting a reasonable and usual mode
of using the highway I cannot agree that in this case the defendant was using the
highway in an ordinary and reasonable manner. I do not agree with the defendants
argument that the intention and object of the defendant in going upon the highway
cannot be taken into account in determining whether he was using it in a lawful
manner. His intention and object are all important.

False Imprisonment
Bird V Jones

Facts
The defendant obstructed a public highway for the purpose of setting up a spectator
area for a boat race. The plaintiff wished to cross the highway through the spectator
area, but was blocked by 2 police officers who had been hired to do crowd control. He
was free to go back the way he came, or any other direction, except for forward on the
public highway. The plaintiff brought an action for imprisonment.

Issue
Is a person liable for imprisonment when he intentionally blocks the right of way of
another on a public highway, but allows the other to go in any other direction but
forward [takes away freedom of movement in one direction only]?

Holding
No. Imprisonment is more than the mere loss of power to go whithersoever one
pleases, it includes the notion of restraint within some limits defined by a will or power
exterior to our own.

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Reasoning
The majority reasoned that the was not imprisoned because although the 's police
officers may have been wrong in not allowing him to pass, he was free to go around
the obstruction. The majority defined imprisonment as requiring that the not be able
to leave an area without breaching some sort of prison boundary. To find
imprisonment in the present case would be to turn every obstruction of the exercise of
a right of way into imprisonment.

Dissent
The dissent defined imprisonment as any illegal restraint of the person by use of force.
He reasoned that it should not matter that the person could find other means of
travelling. "As long as I am prevented from doing what I have a right to do, of what
importance is it that I am permitted to do something else?"

Notes
1. In Whittaker v. Sanford, the was allowed to roam freely on a palatial yacht, but
was not allowed to remain ashore or to leave. She was held to be imprisoned, but the
court stated that the damages awarded were to high because such confinement lacked
"the elements of humiliation and disgrace that frequently attend false imprisonment."
36 comment b ot the Restatement states that the area in which the prisoner is
completely confined may be large. However, when it is very large, the area of
confinement becomes simply an exclusion from another area. 2. How much coercion is
needed? It is not false imprisonment to lock an athletic young man in a first-floor
room with an open window, but it would be if he were stripped of his clothes. In Griffin
v. Clark, the was held to be falsely imprisoned when North, in a burst of agressive
hospitality, stashed her luggage in the trunk of his car, and insisted that she ride with
them on a trip instead of taking the train. In National Bond & Investment Co. v.
Withorn, a person who remained in his car while it was being repossessed was held to
be falsely imprisoned because he was remaining in a lawful area, but could not leave
once the car had been hoisted on the tow truck and taken away. 3. Usually, the
must have intended to confine the to be liable (like in battery), there being no
liability for negligently caused imprisonments. However, this situation only works well
when the harm to a person's dignity outweighs his physical damage. When the
negligent imprisonment results in major physical harm, the case is treated as ordinary
negligence. For example, if a person accidentally locks another in a walk-in freezer,
and immediately realizes the mistake, he is not liable for the "momentary
confinement". However, if he does not find out until much later, he would be liable for
damages if the person came down with pneumonia. 4. If a person does not know that
he is being confined (drunk, asleep, or insane), he may be found to be imprisoned
[probably for deterrence purposes], but the damages would be slight because the
injury to the person's dignity would be nominal.

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 Robinson V Balmain New Ferry

Facts
The defendant operated a ferry from Sydney to Balmain. On the Sydney side there
were some turnstiles. A person travelling from Sydney to Balmain paid on the Sydney
side (i.e. on entry), as did a person who travelled from Balmain to Sydney (i.e. he paid
after using the ferry; the system was similar to that used on the Liverpool Birkenhead
ferry). By the turnstiles was a notice saying a fare of one penny must be paid on
entering or leaving the wharf. No exception will be made to this rule whether the
passenger has travelled by the ferry or not. The claimant entered on the Sydney side
and paid one penny. Finding that no ferry was due to cross for 20 minutes, he decided
to leave the wharf, whereupon he was asked to pay a further penny. He refused and
for a short time was prevented from leaving.

Held:
Dismissing the appeal, that the defendants were not liable for false imprisonment.

Lord Loreburn LC:

The plaintiff paid a penny on entering the wharf to stay there until the boat should
start and then be taken by the boat to the other side. The defendants were admittedly
always ready and willing to carry out their part of this contract. Then the plaintiff
changed his mind and wished to go back. The rules as to the exit from the wharf by
the turnstile required a penny for any person who went through. This the plaintiff
refused to pay, and he was by force prevented from going through the turnstile. He
then claimed damages for assault and false imprisonment.
There was no complaint, at all events there was no question left to the jury by the
plaintiffs request, of any excessive violence, and in the circumstances admitted it is
clear to their Lordships that there was no false imprisonment at all. The plaintiff was
merely called upon to leave the wharf in the way in which he contracted to leave it.
There was no law requiring the defendant to make the exit from their premises
gratuitous to people who come there upon a definite contract which involve their
leaving the wharf by another way; and the defendants were entitled to resist a forcible
passage through their turnstile.

The question whether the notice which was affixed to these premises was brought
home to the knowledge of the plaintiff is immaterial, because the notice itself was
immaterial.

When the plaintiff entered the defendants premises there was nothing agreed as to the
terms on which he might go back, because neither party contemplated his going back.
When he desired to do so the defendants were entitled to impose a reasonable
condition before allowing him to pass through their turnstile from a place to which he
had gone of his own free will. The payment of a penny was a quite a fair condition, and

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if he did not choose to comply with it the defendants were not bound to let him
through. He could proceed on the journey he had contracted for

Trespass to Chattels
Glidden v Szybiak

Facts
Plaintiff, a four year-old girl, encountered a dog owned by Defendants. She approached
the dog, played with him and pulled his ears. The dog bit Plaintiff, and she sued to
recover for her injuries. Defendants argued that Plaintiff, in playing with the dog, had
committed trespass to chattels and was thus not entitled to recover.

Issue
Was Plaintiffs approach upon and subsequent play with the dog trespass to chattels
such as would bar recovery for her injuries?

Held.
No Judgement was entered for the Plaintiff
* One who non-consensually uses or interferes with a chattel of another is guilty of
trespass if the chattel is damaged, the possessor is deprived of use for a substantial
time, or bodily harm is caused by the interference
* Unlike trespass to land, trespass to chattels does not entitle one to nominal
damages. Some sort of damage must result from the interference because sufficient
legal protection of the inviolability of possession of a chattel is found in the privilege to
use reasonable force to maintain possession.

Discussion.
This case introduces the tort of trespass to chattels, albeit in the context of a defense
to another action. The Court sets forth the essential elements of the tort and explains
its distinction from trespass to land. Defendants inability to prove any damage to the
dog doomed the invocation of trespass to chattels as a defense.