After reading Chapter 5, please:
1. Explain Tort Law, its basis, and purpose
Tort law is designed to compensate those who have suffered a loss or injury due
to another person’s wrongful act and to provide remedies for the invasion of
various protected interests. Society not only recognizes an interest in personal
physical safety but also recognizes an interest in protecting property.
2. List and explain the 8 types of Intentional Torts Against Persons
Assault is any intentional and unexcused threat of immediate harmful or offensive
contact. An assault can be completed even if there is no actual contact with the
plaintiff provided that if the defendant’s conduct causes the plaintiff to have a
reasonable apprehension of imminent harm. Battery is an intentional tort that if
the apprehension is completed and results end up harm to the plaintiff.
Intentional confinement of another person’s activity without justification is called
false imprisonment. This can include use of physical barriers, physical restraint,
or threats of physical force. Intentional infliction of Emotional Distress can be
defined as extreme and outrageous conduct resulting in severe emotional
distress to another. Defamation is another intentional tort that involves wrongfully
hurting a person’s good reputation, business, or legal ownership to property.
Invasion of the right to privacy and appropriation is a person’s right to solitude
and freedom prying public eyes. For an intentional tort of privacy invasion to
occur a person must have a reasonable expectation of privacy and the invasion
must be highly offensive. A misrepresentation leads another to believe in a
condition that is different from the condition that actually exists and is often
accomplished through a false or incorrect statement which is called fraudulent
misrepresentation. Wrongful interference generally involves interference with
another’s business rights. Lastly, a trespass to land occurs anytime a person
without permission enters, above, or below the surface of land that is owned by
another person.
3. Explain the four acts that qualify as an invasion of privacy.
Invading someone’s home or illegally searching someone’s briefcase is an
invasion act of privacy also known as intrusion into an individual’s affairs or
seclusion. Publication of information that places a person in a false light is also
an invasion of privacy. Writing a story about a person that attributes ideas and
opinions not held by that person is false light. Public disclosure of private facts
occurs when a person publicly discloses private facts about an individual that an
ordinary person would find objectionable or embarrassing. The fourth invasion of
privacy is appropriation of identity, and this is where an individual is using
another person’s identity, pictures, or other likeness for commercial purposes
without permission is a tortious invasion of privacy.
4. Explain the tort of Defamation, its two types, and the four aspects that the
plaintiff normally must prove
Defamation involves wrongfully hurting a person’s good reputation and can either
