Chapter 7. Intentional Torts
1. In order to constitute a battery, contact need not cause physical injury.
a. True
b. False
2. Bodily contact intended as a compliment or as a joke cannot constitute a battery since there is no intent to offend.
a. True
b. False
3. Intent, for purposes of tort law, does not require an evil or hostile motive.
a. True
b. False
4. Disparagement differs from defamation in that defamation pertains to personal reputation, whereas disparagement
pertains to economic interests.
a. True
b. False
5. Many courts will allow recovery for the infliction of emotional distress even in the absence of physical injury.
a. True
b. False
6. All conversions of personal property are trespasses, but not all trespasses to personal property are conversions.
a. True
b. False
7. Internet service providers have immunity from liability for defamation when publishing information originating from a
third party.
a. True
b. False
8. The same act can never be both a tort and a crime.
a. True
b. False
9. A person may employ deadly force to protect his property.
a. True
b. False
10. Incompetents and persons under the age of 18 cannot be held liable for their intentional torts.
a. True
b. False
11. Assault is principally a mental rather than a physical intrusion.
a. True
b. False
12. Under constitutional privilege, a public official does not have to prove that the defendant published the defamatory
and false comment with knowledge or with reckless disregard of the comment’s falsity and its defamatory character.
a. True
b. False
13. AB, Inc. fires an employee and then, when asked for a reference on him, knowingly makes some untrue statements
which prevent him from finding a job. AB is liable for defamation.
a. True
b. False
14. Only the intentional destruction of personal property and not the use of the property in an unauthorized manner can
give rise to a cause of action for conversion.
a. True
b. False
15. “Punitive damages” is a term referring to damages that will merely compensate victims for the harm they have
suffered, but that will cost defendants more money than they have.
a. True
b. False
16. Consent, given by a person with capacity, negates the wrongfulness of an act.
a. True
b. False
17. Three torts comprise the misuse of legal procedure: malicious prosecution, wrongful criminal proceedings, and verbal
abuse.
a. True
b. False
18. Under the Restatement, the publicity required for the tort of public disclosure of private facts is the same as
“publication” under the law of defamation.
a. True
b. False
19. Malicious prosecution and wrongful civil proceedings impose liability for damages caused by improperly brought
proceedings, including harm to reputation, credit, or standing; emotional distress; and expenses of defense.
a. True
b. False
20. Abuse of process applies even when there is probable cause or when the plaintiff or prosecution succeeds in the
litigation.
a. True
b. False
21. Storeowners can occasionally have a problem with liability for false imprisonment when they seek to question a
suspected shoplifter.
a. True
b. False
22. The spoken threat, “If you don’t give me your billfold and keys, I’ll shoot you,” cannot be an assault since it only
involves words.
a. True
b. False
23. The cause of action of intentional infliction of emotional distress will protect a person from abusive language and
rudeness.
a. True
b. False
24. For purposes of intentional torts, a person can have the intent to cause harm if the harm is substantially certain to
occur even if he or she doesn’t desire that such harm occur.
a. True
b. False
25. Pointing an unloaded gun at someone who believes it is loaded and threatening to shoot constitutes an assault.
a. True
b. False
26. Qualified privilege depends upon proper use of the privilege.
a. True
b. False
27. A true statement of a highly personal nature made to embarrass someone is defamation.
a. True
b. False
28. A letter sent to someone falsely accusing her of being a murderer constitutes the tort of defamation.
a. True
b. False
29. Invasion of privacy is in reality a collection of four distinct torts.
a. True
b. False
30. The tort of appropriation is also known as the right of publicity.
a. True
b. False
31. A person can be guilty of trespass whether he or she intended or did not intend to violate the other‘s rights.
a. True
b. False
32. The terms “nuisance” and “trespass to property“ refer to the same tort.
a. True
b. False
33. A major difference between trespass to personal property and conversion is that the latter does not require intent to
harm whereas trespass does.
a. True
b. False
34. A person would be liable to the rightful owner of stolen property for conversion even though the person bought it in
good faith from the thief and without knowledge that it had been stolen.
a. True
b. False
35. Tort law gives persons relief from civil wrongs or injuries to their person, property, and economic interests.
a. True
b. False
36. Generally, consent is not a defense in an intentional tort action.
a. True
b. False
37. In many instances the same facts will give rise to both an action for false light and defamation.
a. True
b. False
38. The tort of false light imposes liability if the matter in question is objectionable to a reasonable person but is not
necessarily defamatory.
a. True
b. False
39. Businesses that conduct their business activities through employees are liable for their employees’ torts committed in
the course of employment.
a. True
b. False
40. A defamatory communication that is spoken or oral is designated libel.
a. True
b. False
41. One of the principal objectives of tort law is to prevent future harms and losses.
a. True
b. False
42. Tim and Steve are roughhousing in Tim’s parents’ front yard when Steve intentionally pushes Tim onto the neighbor’s
property. In this case:
a. Tim is a trespasser.
b. Steve is a trespasser.
c. Tim and Steve are both trespassers.
d. None of these.
43. The Hometown News snapped a picture of Tom, a local teenager, as he was sleeping under a tree in the park on a
warm spring day. If they print the picture on the front page of the paper:
a. the Hometown News is guilty of intrusion.
b. the Hometown News is guilty of false light.
c. the Hometown News is guilty of appropriation.
d. it is unlikely that the Hometown News is guilty of any tort.
44. Which of the following can be raised as a defense to a claim of defamation?
a. That the statement was true.
b. That there was a constitutional privilege to comment about the plaintiff who is a public figure and that the
statement was made without malice.
c. That there was a conditional privilege to make defamatory comment on another’s statements in order to
protect legitimate self-interest.
d. All of these.
45. Les, a teenager, has the permission of Harold to walk across his yard on the way to school. If Les brings twenty of
his friends across the yard, and they stop to play ball:
a. Les is not guilty of trespass to real property, because he had Harold’s permission to cross the yard.
b. Les’s friends are not guilty of trespass to real property, because they were with Les.
c. Les is guilty of trespass to real property, because he walked across the yard.
d. Les and his friends are guilty of trespass to real property, because they played ball in Harold’s yard.
46. The tort of is a false communication which injures a person‘s reputation and good name by disgracing him and
diminishing the respect in which he is held.
a. false light
b. intrusion
c. defamation
d. disparagement
47. Handwritten, typewritten, printed, pictorial, or televised defamation is:
a. false light.
b. libel.
c. slander.
d. disparagement.
48. Invasion of privacy consists of:
a. appropriation.
b. intrusion.
c. public disclosure of private facts.
d. All of these are invasions of privacy.
49. The intentional dispossession or unauthorized use of the personal property of another is known as:
a. conversion.
b. trespass to personal property.
c. fraud.
d. stealing.
50. The Restatement Third, Torts:
a. was approved in its final form by the American Law Institute in 1995.
b. addresses the elements of the tort action for liability for accidental personal injury, including property damage
and liability for economic loss.
c. covers emotional harm and landowner liability.
d. All of these.