An intentional tort is a category of torts that describes a civil wrong resulting from an intentional act on the part of the tortfeasor（侵权人）. The term negligence, on the other hand, pertains to a tort that simply results from the failure of the tortfeasor to take sufficient care in fulfilling a duty owed, while strict liability torts refers to situations where a party is liable for injuries no matter what precautions were taken.

1. Battery（殴打） and Assault（恐吓）

Battery is the intentional tort that protects a person’s interest in freedom from unwanted bodily contact.

To maintain a battery action, a plaintiff must establish three elements:

(1)  A contact;

(2)  That is harmful or offensive; and

(3)  That the defendant caused the contact intentionally.

Tort law also protects plaintiffs from the apprehension of such contact, even if contact never occurs. This protection is accomplished through the tort of assault. 

Like battery, assault developed from the writ of trespass and has a long history in the common law system.

Here is a very early example of an assault case called an “assault upon the woman”. Despite the lack of contact, the court ruled that defendant had committed an assault.

Although closely used in cases, assault and battery are distinct crimes. In jurisdictions, assault (also called attempted battery) is a threat or physical act that creates a reasonable apprehension of imminent harmful or offensive contact, whereas battery is a physical act that results in that harmful or offensive contact. Assault is a lesser included offense of battery, meaning that assault mergers into battery and that a defendant may be punished for one but not both crimes.

2.False Imprisonment

A person commits false imprisonment when he commits an act of restraint on another person which confines that person in a bounded area. An act of restraint can be a physical barrier, the use of physical force to restrain, a failure to release, or an invalid use of legal authority. Threats of immediate physical force are also sufficient to be acts of restraint.

An area is only bounded if freedom of movement is limited in all directions. If there is a reasonable means of escape from the area, the area is not bounded.

False impression net differs from battery and assault in that it does not protect against contact or apprehension of contact. Rather, it protects an individual’s right to move freely from place to place.

The Restatement of Torts Second defines false impression meant as follows:

An actor is subject to liability to another for false imprisonment if 

(1)  He acts intending to confine the other or a third person within boundaries fixed by the actor, and

(2)  His act directly or indirectly results in such a confinement of the other, and

(3)  The other is conscious of the confinement or is harmed by it.

As a practical matter most false imprisonment cases turn on the issue of whether the plaintiff was truly “confined” to a bounded area.

The Restatement indicates that a plaintiff seeking recovery for false imprisonment must prove that the defendant confined him within boundaries fixed by the defendant. For example, if defendant confines the plaintiff in an island, there being no means to leave except by rowboats, wrongful refuses the guest the use of the boat? The boat is the key. 

The “bounded area” requirement is a bit more difficult to conceptualize. With respect to the intent element of false imprisonment, it is only necessary for the plaintiff to prove that the defendant had a purpose to confine her, or that the defendant was substantially certain that his conduct would cause confinement （监禁、约束）. The defendant’s motive for confining the plaintiff is irrelevant. The distinction between intent and words such as “motive” can be difficult to sort out. In trying to understand the terms, consider the following passage from a South Carolina appellate court decision:

Volition is the actor’s willingness to do an act. Deliberation is the thinking out or weighting of the act before it is done. Purpose is the result act. Malice or motive is the actor’s feeling of ill will or hatred towards the victim of the act.

Intent is proved by showing that the actor acted willingly volition and that he knew or was substantially certain the result would follow from his act. Neither deliberation nor malice is necessary elements of intent.

3.Trespass to Land and Chattels（动产）

Trespass is defined by the act of knowingly entering another person’s property without permission. Such action is held to infringe upon a property owner’s legal right to enjoy the benefits of ownership. Actions violating the real property of another are handled as Trespasses to Land. Violations to personal property are handled as Trespass to Chattels.

Under Tort Law, a property owner may bring a Civil Law suit against a trespasser in order to recover damages or receive compensatory relief for injury suffered as a direct result of a trespass. In a tort action, the plaintiff must prove that the offender had, but knowingly violated, a legal duty to respect another person’s right to property, which resulted in direct injury or loss to the plaintiff. 

The Restatement of Torts defines trespass to land as follows:

One is subject to liability to another for trespass, irrespective of whether he thereby causes harm to any legally protected interest of the other, if he intentionally.

(1) Enters land in the passion of the other, or causes a thing or a third person to do so, or

(2) Remains on the land, or

(3) Fails to remove from the land a thing which he is under a duty to remove.

Note that the Restatement suggests the imposition of liability without regard to whether the defendant harmed the plaintiff. This reflects the fact that trespass to land developed as a mechanism to enforce property boundaries, not as an action to compensate individuals for actual harm.

4. Conversion （财产的转换，转变）

Conversion is an intention act by a defendant causing the serious and substantial interference with or the destruction of the chattel of the defendant. However, one should understand two important wrinkles to this rule. First, a defendant need not physically damage a plaintiff’s property to convert it. In other words, asserting domination over a plaintiff’s property can suffice. Second, courts historically have allowed a plaintiff to recover the full value of converted property, even if the defendant has not damaged the property. Thus, it is sometimes said that the primary distinctions between conversion and trespass to chattels are the degree of the invasion and the “forced sale” remedy.

Why is this a “conversion” case instead of a “trespass to chattels” case? The Restatement of Torts distinguished the two actions by defining conversion as an act that “so seriously interferes with the right of another to control the property that the actor may justly be required to pay the other the full value of the chattel.”

The Restatement then sets forth factors that courts can use in determining the seriousness of the interference:

(1) The extent and duration of the actor’s exercise of domination or control;

(2) The actor’s intent to assert a right in fact inconsistent with the other’s right of control;

(3) The actor’s good faith;

(4) The extent and duration of the resulting interference with the other’s right of control;

(5) The harm done to the chattel;

(6) the inconvenience and expense caused to the other.

5. Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress

The law had been hesitant to allow recovery for emotional distress apart from any invasion of a personal or property interest. In fact, it was not until about 100 years ago that courts began to allow recovery in such situations. The classic case is Wilkinson v. Downton. After the case, the court allowed the plaintiff to recover damages despite the fact that plaintiff did not fit any of the traditional trespassory action.

In 1948, the American Law Institute recognized an action for intentional infliction of emotional distress in the First Restatement of Torts. Today, the Restatement defines the action as follows:” One who by extreme and outrageous conduct intentionally or recklessly causes severe emotional distress to another is subject to liability for such emotional distress, and if bodily harm to the other results from it, from such bodily harm.” The defendant’s conduct must be “extreme and outrageous,” and the plaintiff’s distress must be “severe.”