## Facts

- Pepper was riding a horse on the King’s highway.
- The horse became frightened, bolted, and Pepper alleged he could not stop it.
- Several people were in the road, including Gibbons.
- Pepper alleged he warned bystanders to “take care,” but Gibbons remained in place.
- The horse ran over Gibbons, causing direct bodily injury.
- Gibbons sued Pepper in trespass for assault and battery.
- Pepper filed a special plea seeking to justify or excuse the contact based on the horse’s fright, loss of control, and warning; Gibbons demurred to the plea as legally insufficient.

## Issues

1. Whether, in trespass for assault and battery, a defendant’s plea of justification is legally sufficient when it alleges the injury occurred after the defendant’s horse bolted “against his will,” without confessing the actionable contact and then pleading a recognized legal excuse.
2. Whether alleging lack of intent and warning to the plaintiff, standing alone, defeats liability for a direct personal injury claimed in trespass.

## Decision

- The court sustained the demurrer and held Pepper’s plea was bad.
- The court stated that every justification in trespass must “confess a cause of action.”
- Because the plea did not properly confess the actionable battery and then avoid it by a legally sufficient excuse, it failed as a matter of pleading.
- The effect was that Pepper remained answerable in trespass on the pleadings as framed.

## Legal Principles

- A plea of justification in trespass must “confess and avoid”: it must admit facts constituting the plaintiff’s prima facie trespass claim and then allege additional facts that legally justify or excuse the act.
- A plea that merely asserts the harm occurred accidentally, “against the defendant’s will,” or without intent functions as a denial rather than a justification and is insufficient on demurrer.
- For direct physical injuries pleaded in trespass, absence of intent and the presence of warnings do not, by themselves, supply a complete defense unless the defendant pleads and proves a recognized excuse meeting the stringent requirements for unavoidable accident.

## Conclusion

The King’s Bench rejected a justification plea to a trespass battery claim where the defendant attributed the contact to a runaway horse and lack of volition; in trespass pleading, a defendant must admit the actionable contact and then allege a legally sufficient excuse, not merely assert accident or lack of intent.


Gibbons v. Pepper, 91 Eng. Rep. 922 (K.B. 1695)