Law of Torts Cases on Battery

Collins v Wilcock

Court: Court

Year: 1984

Principle(s): 1. Any touching of another person, however slight, may amount to battery. 2. Battery is not only committed when the action is ‘angry, revengeful, rude, or insolent’. A peaceful touch may amount to a battery. 3. It does not amount to a battery if children are reasonably punished. 4. It does not amount to a battery if one uses reasonable force in self-defense or to prevent a crime. 5. A general defense to an action for battery is consent. This may be express or implied. 6. Bodily contacts in ordinary life are not actionable because they are impliedly consented to by all who move in society and so expose themselves to the risk of bodily contact.

Fisher v. Carrousel Motor Hotel, Inc

Court: Court

Year:

Principle(s): Battery; A touch with any object to which the defendant is intimately attached constitutes physical touch of the plaintiff.

Cole v Turner

Court: Court

Year: 1704

Principle(s): Touching another in anger constitutes battery; Or anger/aggression is necessary for a touch to constitute battery.

Scott v Shepherd (Flying squib case)

Court: Kings Bench

Year: 1773

Principle(s): Direct act of the defendant as a constitutive element of battery

Miller v. Attorney General

Court: High Court

Year: 1975

Principle(s): 1. What amounts to assault: An act that puts another in reasonable fear or apprehension of immediate battery; 2. What does not amount to assault: Rudeness, without more, does not amount to assault; 3. What amounts to battery: A direct and intentional application of physical force to the person of the plaintiff by the defendant.