## Facts

- During a professional baseball game at Fenway Park, Ross Grimsley, a Baltimore Orioles pitcher, warmed up in the bullpen adjacent to the right-field bleachers.
- Spectators in the nearby bleachers continuously heckled Grimsley; he looked directly at the hecklers on multiple occasions.
- After the end of an inning, Grimsley appeared to wind up as if to throw toward his catcher but instead threw a ball over 80 mph at a right angle from the normal warm-up path, directly toward the hecklers.
- The ball passed through a wire mesh fence and struck David Manning, Jr., a spectator who was not among the hecklers.
- Manning sued Grimsley and the Orioles for battery and negligence under Massachusetts law, asserting the throw was intended to silence the hecklers so Grimsley could warm up effectively.
- The trial court directed a verdict for defendants on battery; the jury found for defendants on negligence; Manning appealed only the directed verdict on battery.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence permitted a reasonable jury to find the intent required for battery, making a directed verdict improper.
2. Whether any intent directed at the hecklers could be transferred to Manning, the person actually struck.
3. Whether a jury could find the Orioles vicariously liable because Grimsley acted within the scope of employment.
4. Whether the defense verdict on negligence necessarily precluded a battery claim based on intent.

## Decision

- The court reversed the directed verdict on the battery claim and remanded for a new trial on battery as to both Grimsley and the Orioles.
- The evidence, viewed favorably to Manning, could support an inference that Grimsley intentionally threw toward the hecklers either to cause harmful contact or to cause imminent apprehension of such contact.
- Transferred intent could apply even if Grimsley did not intend to hit Manning and aimed only at the hecklers as a group.
- A jury could find the Orioles potentially liable under respondeat superior because the act occurred while Grimsley was warming up and was allegedly motivated in part by a desire to perform his duties without interference.
- The negligence defense verdict did not conclusively decide intent and therefore did not bar the battery claim.

## Legal Principles

- Battery may be proved by showing intent to cause harmful or offensive contact (or intent to cause imminent apprehension of such contact) and that contact results directly or indirectly.
- Intent for battery may be inferred from conduct and surrounding circumstances, including a deliberate, dangerous act by a skilled actor directed toward a known group of persons.
- Under transferred intent, intent directed at one person (or group) supports liability to an unintended victim who suffers the resulting contact.
- An employer may be vicariously liable for an employee’s intentional tort when the act occurs within authorized time and space limits and is at least partly motivated by serving the employer’s purposes, including responding to interference with assigned duties.
- A defense verdict on negligence does not necessarily negate intent and does not, by itself, preclude an intentional-tort claim.

## Conclusion

The court held that the battery claim should have been submitted to the jury because the evidence allowed findings of intentional conduct, transferred intent to the injured spectator, and possible vicarious liability of the team, and because the negligence verdict did not resolve the distinct issue of intent.


Manning v. Grimsley, 643 F.2d 20 (1st Cir. 1981)