Court: House of Lords
Year: 1895
Principle(s): Damnum Sine injuria: An action in tort cannot arise if there is no infringement of a legal right despite the existence of harm.
Court: Court of Appeal
Year: 1965
Principle(s): An action for trespass to the person can only be brought for intentional torts.
Court: High Court
Year: 1830
Principle(s): An action constitutes an assault if there is a means of carrying out the threat into effect, and not actually carrying out the threat
Court: Court
Year: 1669
Principle(s): Words accompanying an act can negate an assault; For an act to constitute an assault, there should be an intention to cause harm or injury.
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.
Court: Court
Year: 1704
Principle(s): Touching another in anger constitutes battery; Or anger/aggression is necessary for a touch to constitute battery.
Court: Court
Year: 1844
Principle(s): An omission does not constitute a trespass. An action is required
Court: Court
Year: 1986
Principle(s): For an act to constitute assault, it must be possible to carry out physical violence
Court: Court
Year:
Principle(s): First, revenge does not amount to self-defence. Secondly, the force used in self-defence must be proportionate and reasonable.
Court: Court
Year: 1848
Principle(s): An assault must be an act done against the will of the party assaulted: and therefore it cannot be said that a party has been assaulted by his own permission or consent
Court: Court
Year: 1878
Principle(s): Consent as a defense to an action for trespass to the person.
Court: Court
Year: 1853
Principle(s): A conditional threat which causes a reasonable apprehension of harm would constitute an assault
Court: Court
Year: 1840
Principle(s): An otherwise empty threat may constitute an assault if there is reasonable apprehension of harm.
Court: House of Lords
Year:
Principle(s): 1. Generally, it constitutes trespass to touch or perform an operation on a person without his consent. 2. However, in instances where a person is unable to consent, he or she may be touched or operated on if doing so is in his or her best interest. 3. A touch does not have to be hostile to constitute battery. Per Lord Goff, "A prank that gets out of hand, an over-friendly slap on the back, surgical treatment by a surgeon who mistakenly thinks that the patient has consented to it, all these things may transcend the bounds of lawfulness, without being characterised as hostile."
Court: Kings Bench
Year: 1773
Principle(s): Direct act of the defendant as a constitutive element of battery
Court: Court
Year:
Principle(s): Battery; A touch with any object to which the defendant is intimately attached constitutes physical touch of the plaintiff.
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.
Court: House of Lords
Year: 1915
Principle(s): If the defendant fails to facilitate the exit of the plaintiff in another way than earlier contemplated by the plaintiff and defendant, the defendant is not liable for false imprisonment.
Court: Queen's Bench
Year: 1845
Principle(s): For false imprisonment, there must be a total restraint on the plaintiff. If the plaintiff has a reasonable means of escaping, there shall be no false imprisonment.
Court: Court
Year:
Principle(s): When a person enters an agreement that stipulates the terms of entry or exit from a premises (the wharf in this instance), it does not amount to false imprisonment if he is prevented from exiting the premises contrary to the terms of the agreement.
Court: Privy Council
Year: 1961
Principle(s): To maintain an action in trespass, one needs to be in possession of the land. Ownership is not the deciding factor. Establishing possession of land does not require one to take active steps such as enclosing the land or cultivating it. In the case of vacant and unenclosed land which is not being cultivated there is little which can be done on the land to indicate possession. In establishing possession against a person who never had any title to the land, “the slightest amount of possession would be sufficient.”
Court: Court of Appeal
Year: 1973
Principle(s): 1. The mere possession of land is sufficient to maintain trespass against anyone who cannot show a better title. 2. In a trespass action, an averment of ownership is consistent with, and amounts to an averment of possession. Ownership may be proved by proof of possession.
Court: Court
Year: 1967
Principle(s): 1. A person who is on land by the leave and licence of the person who has possession of the land is not a trespasser. 2. A person who is on land in the exercise of an independent right to proceed on the land is not a trespasser. 3. When the licence of a person is revoked, reasonable time must be given to the person to leave the land.
Court: Court of Appeal
Year: 1915
Principle(s): 1. The licence of a contractual licensee cannot be revoked. 2. A person with a licence to be on a land is not a trespasser. The plaintiff's licence was not revoked, and he could not be considered a trespasser.
Court: Court
Year: 1978
Principle(s): 1. A person has a right to the airspace above the surface of his land, and trespassing on this space amounts to trespass to land. 2. However, an owner’s right to the airspace does not actually extend to the heavens, as literally advanced by the maxim “cujus est solum ejus est usque ad coelum et ad inferos,” but is to be limited to “such height as is necessary for the ordinary use and enjoyment of his land and the structures upon it.”
Court: House of Lords
Year: 1990
Principle(s): Per Lord Bridge, the following questions ought to be asked to determine if a duty of care exists: 1. Whether the damage caused to the plaintiff was reasonably foreseeable. 2. Whether the parties are in a relationship of proximity. 3. Whether it is fair, just, and reasonable to impose a duty of care on the defendant.
Court: House of Lords
Year: 1932
Principle(s): A duty of care is owed to persons who are in close proximity to be affected by our acts.
Court: House of Lords
Year: 1970
Principle(s): Duty of care: neighbor principle, reasonable foreseeability of harm.
Court: House of Lords
Year: 1978
Principle(s): Anns two stage for duty of care.
Court: Court
Year: 1965
Principle(s): Duty of care: reasonable foreseeability of harm.
Court: High Court (KB)
Year: 1933
Principle(s): Voluntary assumption of risk, no duty of care; If the acts of the defendant no longer pose a danger to others, a person attempting to get rid of the dangerous situation is not owed a duty of care
Court: Court of Appeal
Year:
Principle(s): Duty of care owed to third party rescuers.
Court: Supreme Court
Year: 1961
Principle(s): A person against whom an action for trespass was brought must have acted voluntarily, not involuntarily or accidentally.
Court: High Court
Year: 2016
Principle(s): Vicarious liability; basis of liability in tort; medical negligence.
Court: Court
Year: 1975
Principle(s): 1. All who procure trespass to be done are trespassers themselves. 2. Trespass to chattel is an intentional interference with a chattel in the possession of another. 3. The plaintiff in an action of trespass must, at the time of the trespass, have the present possession of the goods, either actual or constructive, or a legal right to the immediate possession. 4. Once there is interference with goods without lawful justification, such as in the present case, the tort of trespass to chattel may be held to be committed.
Court: Court of Appeal
Year: 1954
Principle(s): 1. In deciding what the standard of care should be, the court will examine what is reasonable under the circumstances. 2. In deciding what the standard of care should be, the court will also examine what risks are necessary to achieve a given end.
Court: Court
Year: 1951
Principle(s): 1. The test in determining whether there was a breach of duty of care is not whether there is a foreseeable risk of harm (alone). There must be consideration of the likelihood of the risk or damage occurring. 2. Also, the court should also consider the severity or seriousness of the injury if inflicted by the harm accruing from the defendant's acts or omissions.
Court: Court
Year: 1951
Principle(s): The seriousness of the damage that will accrue if the defendant breaches his duty will be taken into account in deciding the standard of care. The more serious the damage or injury, the higher the standard of care.
Court:
Year:
Principle(s): 1. When the risk is inconsiderable (small), the defendant is not required to take considerable steps to avoid that risk. 2. The cost of averting a risk and the nature of the risk are considered in determining the standard of care.
Court:
Year: 1954
Principle(s): The defendant cannot be said to have breached his duty of care if he acts in a manner consistent with standard practice.
Court:
Year:
Principle(s): In determining the standard of care, the court should take into consideration the end to be served by a party behaving in a particular way. If the end is vital, it may justify the assumption of more risks (lower standard of care).
Court: Kings Bench
Year: 1923
Principle(s): Consent procured by deceit is not valid to serve as a defense in an action for trespass to the person
Court: Court
Year: 1957
Principle(s): Trespass to land includes trespass to the space above the solid surface of the land (the airspace).