Battery-Tort - This document provides : Battery supported by Collins v Wilcock (1984), Nash - Tort Law Directions PDF

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This document provides : Battery supported by Collins v Wilcock (1984), Nash v Sheen (1953), Livingstone v Ministry of Defence (1984), and Wilson v Pringle (1987)....

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Battery

A battery is the actual infliction of unlawful force on another person. As well as bodily integrity, the tort of battery protects the claimant’s dignity. An action can be brought where there is indignity without suffering physical injury but where the claimant’s rights have been infringed. An example of such an indignity could be unlawfully taking a person’s fingerprints or wrongfully seizing a person’s arm to detain him in a shop on suspicion of shoplifting. In these cases, the claimant may only want to establish a principle, rather than seek compensation and because of this they sue in trespass rather than negligence. Trespass, as we have seen, is actionable per se (it is not necessary to prove damage) but in order to succeed in negligence the claimant must show that damage or harm has been suffered.

Collins v Wilcock (1984)

A woman police officer tried to question a woman whom she suspected of

soliciting contrary to the Street Offences Act 1959. When she took hold of the woman’s arm in order to detain her and administer a caution the woman scratched the police officer’s arm. On appeal against her conviction for assaulting a police officer in the execution of her duty, the question to be decided was whether the police officer had gone beyond the scope of her duty in

detaining the woman in circumstances short of arresting her. It was held that the officer had gone beyond the scope of her duty and, without exercising powers of arrest, the officer’s action in touching the woman amounted to a battery. You should note that a distinction is made between a restraint in these circumstances and a touching to attract a person’s attention or in the ordinary conduct incidental in everyday life.

The intention required in battery is that the defendant must have intended to commit the act that constitutes the trespass.

Nash v Sheen (1953)

The defendant hairdresser was liable in battery when a tone rinse which

caused a rash was given to a plaintiff who had requested a permanent

wave.

Livingstone v Ministry of Defence (1984)

The defendant soldier in Northern Ireland intended to hit someone other than the victim when he fired a baton round. However, because his action in firing the baton was intentional, even

though he was aiming at a rioter when he fired, the soldier was found liable in battery when he missed his target and struck the plaintiff.

Wilson v Pringle (1987)

A 13-year-old schoolboy, admitted that as an act of ordinary horseplay in a school corridor he pulled the plaintiff’s schoolbag from his shoulder. This caused the plaintiff to fall and suffer a hip injury and he applied for a summary judgment on the ground that the defendant’s admission of horseplay amounted to a clear case of battery to which there was no defence. The trial judge accepted this view and granted summary judgment. The defendant appealed against this decision to the Court of Appeal, which held the trial judge had been wrong to grant summary judgment as the admitted facts did not automatically amount to a battery.

In R (1990), Lord Goff defined battery as any intentional physical contact which was not ‘generally acceptable in the ordinary conduct of daily life’ and he doubted whether it is correct to say that the touching must be hostile for the purpose of battery....