The battery can be as direct as hitting someone in the face with your fists, or as indirect as setting a trap that gets damaged an hour or days after it is taken. Assault can also be unwanted sexual touching or other non-consensual touching that causes harm. Damages awarded in battery cases vary widely, depending on the severity of the injuries. The aggravating battery is a simple battery with an additional element of an aggravating factor. It is primarily the addition of a weapon (whether the use is real or simply threatened) and it is almost always a crime. Other heavy batteries include those committed against protected persons (children, elderly or disabled persons, or public officials); those in which the victim suffers serious injury; or those that occur in a vehicle or transit station, school zone or other protected place. These are all aggravating factors that elevate common assault to the level of criminality. So there`s a case you`ll probably read in Offenses, Leichtman v. WLW Jacor Communications This is an Ohio case from 1994. And here, Leichtman is an anti-smoking advocate. And he goes to a talk show in Cincinnati and the talk show hosts decide it`s going to be funny to blow cigar smoke in his face. And that`s all that`s going on.
The hosts blow cigar smoke in his face and he complains of assault. And the court says, «Yes, he has a claim because tobacco smoke is particulate matter. And the fine dust of tobacco smoke hit Leichtman. Nobody got their hands on Leichtman, but it was enough to make a touch for there to be a battery. The degree and quality of intent in civil assault (tort) differs from that of the crime. The degree and quality of intent sufficient for the battery also varies from one common law country to another and often within different jurisdictions within those countries. In Australia, negligence in an act is sufficient to establish intent. In the United States, intent to commit an act that ultimately leads to contact is sufficient for the unlawful act of the battery, while intent to cause injury to another person is required for criminal assault. [7] Most sex crimes involve battery elements (since they are essentially non-consensual contact), and some states actually have penal codes that list the specific crime of «sexual violence.» The victim of an assault does not have to be aware of the act at the time the offence was committed. For example, if a surgeon performing an appendectomy on an unconscious patient decides to remove the patient`s spleen for personal collection, the surgeon has committed a battery against the patient. Similarly, a battery occurs when the surgeon allows an untrained plumber cousin to fish the appendix during surgery.
Although the patient has consented to be touched by the surgeon, this consent does not extend to persons whose patient would not reasonably expect to participate in the procedure. Well, what about contact? Be aware that there is an indirect battery. Offensive contact with the complainant may be a direct or indirect consequence of the act. It doesn`t have to be a real touch. For example, a direct form of the battery would be when I hit someone in the face and my fist comes into contact with their nose. However, if I were to shoot a person with a gun, I would not make contact if the bullet hit the person I was trying to shoot, but the bullet itself would come into contact. This would be an indirect contact, but would still be considered satisfactory for the battery cell. Self-defence against assault can occur when a person has reason to believe that he or she is being attacked by another person and involves a reasonable level of physical contact with that person to prevent that person from being involved in a physical attack.
[11] Because courts have accepted a cause of action for assault in the absence of hand-to-head contact,[4] the external limits of tort liability can often be difficult to define. The Pennsylvania Superior Court attempted to enter the M. v. Booten[5] in this regard, emphasizing the importance of the concept of personal dignity. In this case, the students bought and provided alcohol to their boyfriend on the eve of his twenty-first birthday. After drinking almost an entire bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey, the miner died of acute ethanol poisoning. The Pennsylvania Superior Court overturned the trial court`s decision, ruling that while providing alcoholic beverages to a minor was certainly an act of negligence, it did not reach the level of a battery. In Justice Montemuro`s words, providing alcohol to a person is «not an act that interferes with that person`s sense of physical dignity or inviolability.» [6] An even more attenuated form of contact could be simply intentionally blowing smoke into a person`s face. In this case, the particles could come into contact, and this contact would meet the contact requirements for the battery.
