Intentional torts - Battery

Learning Outcomes

This article explains battery as an intentional tort tested on the MBE, including:

• The black-letter definition of battery and each required element, with emphasis on how examiners frame harmful or offensive contact and “person of another” issues.
• The specific and general intent standards, the doctrine of transferred intent among intentional torts, and how to distinguish intent from negligence on multiple-choice questions.
• How direct and indirect contacts, as well as contacts with objects closely connected to the plaintiff, satisfy the contact requirement, even when the plaintiff is unaware of the touching.
• The causation requirement for battery and typical MBE fact patterns that raise foreseeable-intervening-acts or multi-actor causation traps.
• Major defenses to battery—consent, self-defense, defense of others, and defense of property—with attention to scope, proportionality of force, and common mistaken-belief scenarios.
• The role of damages in battery, including nominal, compensatory, and punitive damages, and the application of the eggshell plaintiff rule once liability is established.
• Techniques for reading and dissecting battery hypotheticals, distinguishing battery from assault and negligence, and avoiding frequent exam pitfalls such as overemphasizing actual injury or plaintiff awareness.

MBE Syllabus

For the MBE, you are required to understand the black-letter rules and application of intentional torts, especially battery, with a focus on the following syllabus points:

• The definition and elements of battery
• The requirement and types of intent for battery
• What constitutes harmful or offensive contact
• What counts as contact with the “person of another”
• The causation requirement for battery
• The doctrine of transferred intent
• Common defenses to battery, including consent and self-defense
• Damages in battery (nominal, compensatory, and punitive)
• How battery is distinguished from assault and negligence

This article focuses your revision on these core areas.

Test Your Knowledge

Attempt these questions before reading this article. If you find some difficult or cannot remember the answers, remember to look more closely at that area during your revision.

1. Which of the following is NOT required to establish battery?
   1. Intent to cause harmful or offensive contact
   2. Actual physical harm to the plaintiff
   3. Causation
   4. Harmful or offensive contact with the plaintiff's person
2. If Defendant intends to hit Person A but accidentally hits Person B, Defendant is:
   1. Not liable to Person B because there was no intent to hit B
   2. Liable to Person B under transferred intent
   3. Liable only if B was aware of the contact
   4. Not liable if B suffered no injury
3. Which of the following is a valid defense to battery?
   1. The plaintiff was not aware of the contact
   2. The defendant acted with malice
   3. The plaintiff expressly consented to the contact
   4. The defendant did not touch the plaintiff directly

Introduction

Battery is a core intentional tort tested on the MBE. It involves the defendant intentionally causing harmful or offensive contact with the plaintiff's person. Battery is distinct from assault, which focuses on apprehension rather than contact. Understanding the precise elements and how intent operates is essential for MBE success. Fact patterns often hide battery in everyday interactions—pranks, jokes, medical treatment, and ordinary jostling—so you must be able to spot it quickly.

Key Term: Battery
The intentional infliction of harmful or offensive contact with the person of another, without consent or privilege.

Elements of Battery

To establish battery, the plaintiff must prove:

• An act by the defendant that brings about harmful or offensive contact with the plaintiff's person
• Intent by the defendant to cause such contact or the apprehension of such contact
• Causation

The “act” must be a voluntary movement; reflexes or movements while unconscious do not qualify. Intent is satisfied if the defendant intends either the contact itself or an imminent apprehension of that contact. Causation requires that the defendant's conduct be a substantial factor in bringing about the contact, even if other forces also contribute.

Harmful or Offensive Contact

Contact is "harmful" if it causes pain, injury, or physical impairment. Contact is "offensive" if it would offend a reasonable person's sense of dignity. The plaintiff need not be aware of the contact at the time it occurs (e.g., a patient under anesthesia).

Key Term: Harmful or Offensive Contact
Physical touching that either causes bodily harm or would offend a reasonable person's sense of dignity.

Whether contact is offensive is judged by an objective standard: would a reasonable person in the plaintiff's position be offended? Ordinary contacts of everyday life—such as jostling in a crowded bus or brushing past someone in a hallway—are not batteries. If, however, the defendant knows of the plaintiff's particular sensitivities and exploits them, contact that might seem trivial to others can still be actionable.

Contact with the Person of Another

Battery does not require skin-to-skin touching. Contact may be direct, such as striking a person with a fist, or indirect, such as setting in motion a force that hits the plaintiff (throwing a rock, pulling a chair away, or setting a trap). Objects intimately connected to the body—clothing, a backpack, a bicycle being ridden, items held in the hand, or even a dog on a leash—are treated as part of the “person” for this purpose.

Key Term: Contact (Battery)
Any direct or indirect touching set in motion by the defendant that results in harmful or offensive contact.

Key Term: Person of Another
The plaintiff’s body and anything closely connected to it, such that touching it counts as touching the plaintiff.

On the MBE, expect questions where the physical touch is to something the plaintiff is holding or wearing (a hat knocked off, a plate snatched from the hand, water dumped on someone). Treat these as contacts with the plaintiff's person.

Intent Requirement

Intent for battery can be either:

• Specific intent: The defendant desires to bring about the harmful or offensive contact.
• General intent: The defendant knows with substantial certainty that such contact will result from their actions.

The defendant need not intend the harm, only the contact.

Key Term: Intent (Battery)
The purpose to cause harmful or offensive contact, or knowledge with substantial certainty that such contact will occur.

Children and persons with mental impairments can still form the intent required for battery and are liable if they act with the purpose or substantial certainty that contact will occur. What must be intended is the contact, not its harmfulness or offensiveness; if the contact that actually occurs is objectively harmful or offensive, the intent element is satisfied. A mistaken belief about the circumstances (for example, thinking you have a right to shove someone) does not negate intent, though it may affect available defenses.

Remember that intent for an intentional tort is stricter than negligence: negligence looks to whether the defendant failed to exercise reasonable care and should have foreseen a risk; battery requires that the defendant either wanted the contact or knew it was substantially certain to occur.

Transferred Intent

If the defendant intends to commit a battery (or certain other intentional torts) against one person but instead causes it to another, the intent transfers and the defendant is liable.

Key Term: Transferred Intent
The doctrine that intent to commit a tort against one person applies if another person is affected instead.

Transferred intent also applies when the defendant intends a different intentional tort such as assault, but a battery actually results. On the exam, remember that transferred intent operates among battery, assault, false imprisonment, trespass to land, and trespass to chattels—but not for conversion or intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Causation

The defendant's act must be a substantial factor in bringing about the contact. Direct and indirect contact both qualify (e.g., setting a trap that causes contact).

Key Term: Causation (Battery)
The requirement that the defendant's act is a substantial factor in bringing about the harmful or offensive contact.

Causation is usually straightforward in battery questions. The defendant cannot escape liability by arguing that a third person or an object actually made the contact; if the defendant set the physical events in motion and the contact was a natural result, causation is satisfied.

Defenses to Battery

Common defenses include:

• Consent (express or implied)
• Self-defense (reasonable force)
• Defense of others (reasonable force)
• Defense of property (reasonable, non-deadly force)

If a valid defense applies, the defendant is not liable for battery.

Consent may be express, or implied from conduct, custom, or circumstances (such as ordinary contacts in sports). The plaintiff must have capacity, and consent is limited to its scope—going beyond what was agreed to (for example, performing a different procedure during surgery) can still be a battery.

Key Term: Consent (Battery)
Voluntary agreement, express or implied, to the particular contact, given by someone with capacity.

Self-defense and defense of others require a reasonable belief that the plaintiff is about to commit an imminent harmful or offensive contact. Only reasonable, proportionate force may be used; deadly force is justified only when the defendant reasonably believes they face a threat of death or serious bodily harm. A reasonable mistake about the need for force does not destroy the defense.

Key Term: Self-Defense
Privilege to use reasonable, proportionate force to prevent an imminent harmful or offensive contact.

Defense of property allows only non-deadly force, and only after a request to desist when feasible. Mechanical traps or other deadly measures to protect property alone are never privileged.

Key Term: Defense of Property
Limited privilege to use reasonable, non-deadly force to prevent a tort against property.

On the MBE, be careful to match the level of force to the interest being protected: deadly force is permitted to protect life, not to protect mere property.

Damages in Battery

Battery is actionable even without proof of actual damage; the plaintiff may recover nominal damages for the violation of the protected interest in bodily integrity. If physical harm does result, the defendant is liable for all consequences, even if unexpectedly severe (the so-called “eggshell plaintiff” principle). In appropriate cases—such as when the defendant acts outrageously or with malice—punitive damages may also be awarded.

Key Term: Nominal Damages
A small monetary award available when a tort is proven without significant actual harm.

Key Term: Eggshell Plaintiff Rule
The principle that a defendant takes the plaintiff as found and is liable for all resulting harm.

This “eggshell plaintiff” concept is the same one you encounter in negligence: once the elements of the intentional tort are satisfied, the defendant bears the risk that the plaintiff is unusually fragile.

Worked Example 1.1

A throws a rock at B, intending to scare B, but the rock hits B on the arm, causing a bruise. Is A liable for battery?

Answer:
Yes. A intended to cause contact (even if only to scare), and harmful contact occurred. The bruise is harmful contact, and A's intent to cause contact is sufficient for battery.

Worked Example 1.2

C pushes D as a joke, but D is not injured and did not see the push coming. D later learns of the push. Can D recover for battery?

Answer:
Yes. The push was offensive contact, even if not harmful. D's lack of awareness at the time does not prevent recovery. Intent to cause the contact is sufficient.

Worked Example 1.3

E intends to hit F but misses and hits G instead. Is E liable to G for battery?

Answer:
Yes. Under transferred intent, E's intent to hit F transfers to G. E is liable to G for battery.

Worked Example 1.4

H knows that P, for religious reasons, finds physical contact with unrelated men deeply offensive. At a store, H deliberately taps P's headscarf to get her attention. P notices and feels humiliated but is not hurt. Has H committed battery?

Answer:
Yes. A reasonable person in P's position could find the intentional touching of her clothing offensive. The headscarf is closely connected to P's body, so touching it counts as contact with P's person, and no physical injury is required.

Exam Warning

On the MBE, battery does not require actual physical injury—offensive contact alone is enough. Do not confuse battery with negligence, which requires breach of a duty of care and resulting harm, or with assault, which focuses on apprehension and requires the plaintiff to be aware of the threatened contact.

Revision Tip

Remember: For battery, intent to contact is enough. The defendant need not intend harm, nor must the plaintiff be aware of the contact at the time.

Key Point Checklist

This article has covered the following key knowledge points:

• Battery requires an intentional act causing harmful or offensive contact with the plaintiff's person.
• The contact can be direct or indirect and can be with anything closely connected to the plaintiff's body.
• Intent can be specific or general; transferred intent applies among the traditional intentional torts.
• What must be intended is the contact; the defendant need not intend that the contact be harmful or offensive.
• The contact must be harmful or offensive, but actual physical injury is not required.
• The plaintiff need not be aware of the contact when it occurs.
• Causation is required; the defendant's act must be a substantial factor in bringing about the contact.
• Defenses include consent, self-defense, defense of others, and defense of property (non-deadly force only).
• Battery is actionable without actual damages; nominal damages are available, and the eggshell plaintiff rule applies.
• Battery is distinct from assault (which focuses on reasonable apprehension, not contact) and from negligence (which is based on lack of reasonable care, not intent).

Key Terms and Concepts

• Battery
• Harmful or Offensive Contact
• Intent (Battery)
• Transferred Intent
• Causation (Battery)
• Contact (Battery)
• Person of Another
• Consent (Battery)
• Self-Defense
• Defense of Property
• Nominal Damages
• Eggshell Plaintiff Rule