Subtitles section Play video
-
let's talk about torts for a moment delicious delicious torts
-
no, not the pastry kind, the legal kind
-
a tort is something you sue someone for doing to you
-
it's not very delicious at all
-
one kind of tort is the intentional kind: this is it something you intend
-
to do to another person that causes damage now you don't necessarily need to intend to
-
cause the specific harm that they sue you for, you just need to attend to
-
affect the other person and harm needs to result from your actions so if you
-
intend to give them a good scare and they have a heart attack and die you
-
don't get off the hook because you didn't intend to kill them if you do
-
something and a harmful result is possible but not substantially certain you can get in
-
trouble for acting recklessly but you wouldn't get in trouble for acting intentionally
-
you can even intend to commit one tort against someone and get
-
sued for a different one do you accidentally commit in the process
-
so what are a few common intentional torts first there's battery
-
...no, battery is the intentional infliction of harmful or offensive contact
-
you can't sue over ordinary and reasonable contact though
-
even if you personally find it offensive
-
assault is, no... assault is something that gets mixed up with battery a lot
-
where battery is harmful or offensive contact assault is
-
giving someone the reasonable belief they were about to make harmful or
-
offensive contact with them you'll note that I said reasonable
-
if most people wouldn't think they were about to be touched
-
then you can't sue for assault you'll also note that I said
-
the belief has to be that they are about to be touched
-
you can't be assaulted if the contact could come at some later point
-
most states have a rule that words alone aren't enough to justify believing you're about to be touched
-
assault is different than attempted battery
-
attempted battery is attempting to cause contact and failing where assault is
-
intending to make someone think you were trying to harm them even if you never meant to
-
false imprisonment is where you confine someone against their will
-
the confinement has to have definite physical boundaries and the trapped person
-
can only sue for false imprisonment if there are no reasonable means of escape
-
I said reasonable means of escape you can even be falsely imprisoned if the
-
only thing holding you there are threats of harm in the near future
-
finally we turn to intentional infliction of emotional distress
-
the name kinda says it all
-
it's where you intentionally inflict emotional distress not just anything counts
-
the conduct needs to be so extreme and outrageous that it
-
goes outside all bounds of decency
-
it's a tough test to meet one of the more famous cases where someone told
-
a woman as a practical joke that her husband horribly injured and was near
-
death so she had nervous collapse the victim can recover if they just happen
-
to be very sensitive and they also have to show that they actually suffered
-
distress not just that what happened to them was really horrible so being very
-
thick skinned would hurt your ability to recover
-
you can be sued for things you intentionally do to property
-
as well as for things you intentionally do to people
-
one tort about property is trespass there's trespass to land and trespass to channels
-
chattels is just ye olde English for movable property
-
trespass to land is when you enter someone else's land without permission
-
or when you enter with permission but you don't leave when the permission ends
-
you can't be sued if you didn't enter the other person's land on purpose but
-
you can be sued if you enter the land on purpose but
-
mistakenly think you're not trespassing
-
you don't even need to enter the land personally to cause a trespass if you
-
cause another object to enter the land then you've still trespassed
-
it used to be that your land rights extended upwards to the heavens and down into the earth
-
now you get rights for a short distance to the direction but nothing further
-
which makes sense from the perspective of the airlines
-
trespass to chattels is when you interfere with someone else's use of their personal property
-
it's not just stealing the thing because that's its own tort called conversion
-
for trespass to chattels you have to show that there was some damage to the owner
-
either from their property losing value from the owner being unable to use it for some significant period
-
conversion is taking something permanently it means to
-
convert the property from the owner's to your own which requires paying the full
-
value as damages it does not mean changing the property's religion
-
the property either needs to be taken entirely and not returned or the value
-
needs to have been reduced enough that it is considered the equivalent of just taking it
-
and there you have it
