Facts
Alan Wainwright, along with his mother, went to visit his stepbrother, who was detained in Leeds Prison awaiting trial. Because the stepbrother was suspected of taking drugs in jail, both visitors were asked to consent to a strip search under Rule 86(1) of the Prison Rules 1964 (consolidated 1998), which grants prison authorities a power to search any person entering a prison. They reluctantly consented and were searched by prison officers, which they found upsetting. In particular, Alan Wainwright was handled in a way that Home Office counsel that later conceded was battery.
The Wainwrights then consulted a solicitor, who arranged for them to be examined by a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist concluded that Alan, who had physical and learning difficulties, had been so severely affected by his experience that he suffered post-traumatic stress syndrome. Mrs Wainwright had suffered emotional distress but no recognised psychiatric illness.
Judgment
At Leeds County Court, the judge held that the searches were wrongful (and hence not protected by statutory authority) because of the battery and invasion of the Wainwrights' "right to privacy", which he conceived to be a trespass to the person. He awarded Alan Wainwright £3,500 basic and £1,000 aggravated damages, and Mrs Wainwright £1,600 basic and £1,000 aggravated damages.
The Court of Appeal did not agree with the judge's extensions of the notion of trespass to the person and did not consider that apart from the battery, which was unchallenged, the prison officers had committed any wrongful act. It thus set aside the judgments in favour of the Wainwrights with the exception of the damages for battery, which it valued at £3,750.
The plaintiffs appealed to the House of Lords. Lord Hoffmann held that there was no tort for invasion of privacy because, based on experience in the United States, it was too uncertain. [1] Moreover, a claim under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), for the right to privacy and a family life, did not help because the ECHR was merely a standard that applied to whatever was already present in the common law. Common-law protection was sufficient privacy protection for the ECHR's purpose. The assertion that there may have been a breach of Article 3 (inhuman and degrading treatment) was completely unfounded. [2] He also held that there was no claim for a tort of intention to cause harm under the Wilkinson v Downton case.
In Lord Scott's opinion, the way that the strip searches were carried out had humiliated and caused distress to both Mrs Wainwright and to Alan and was "calculated (in an objective sense)" to do so, even if that was not the intention of the prison officers. However, that was not tortious at common law even if the humiliation and distress were intended. [3]
The appeal was dismissed unanimously by the Law Lords.
A tort is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with criminal wrongs that are punishable by the state. While criminal law aims to punish individuals who commit crimes, tort law aims to compensate individuals who suffer harm as a result of the actions of others. Some wrongful acts, such as assault and battery, can result in both a civil lawsuit and a criminal prosecution in countries where the civil and criminal legal systems are separate. Tort law may also be contrasted with contract law, which provides civil remedies after breach of a duty that arises from a contract. Obligations in both tort and criminal law are more fundamental and are imposed regardless of whether the parties have a contract.
Trespass is an area of tort law broadly divided into three groups: trespass to the person, trespass to chattels, and trespass to land.
False imprisonment or unlawful imprisonment occurs when a person intentionally restricts another person's movement within any area without legal authority, justification, or the restrained person's permission. Actual physical restraint is not necessary for false imprisonment to occur. A false imprisonment claim may be made based upon private acts, or upon wrongful governmental detention. For detention by the police, proof of false imprisonment provides a basis to obtain a writ of habeas corpus.
This article addresses torts in United States law. As such, it covers primarily common law. Moreover, it provides general rules, as individual states all have separate civil codes. There are three general categories of torts: intentional torts, negligence, and strict liability torts.
At common law, battery is a tort falling under the umbrella term 'Trespass to the person'. Entailing unlawful contact which is directed and intentional, or reckless and voluntarily bringing about a harmful or offensive contact with a person or to something closely associated with them, such as a bag or purse, without legal consent.
In tort law, detinue is an action to recover for the wrongful taking of personal property. It is initiated by an individual who claims to have a greater right to their immediate possession than the current possessor. For an action in detinue to succeed, a claimant must first prove that he had better right to possession of the chattel than the defendant, and second, that the defendant refused to return the chattel once demanded by the claimant.
In common law, assault is the tort of acting intentionally, that is with either general or specific intent, causing the reasonable apprehension of an immediate harmful or offensive contact. Assault requires intent, it is considered an intentional tort, as opposed to a tort of negligence. Actual ability to carry out the apprehended contact is not necessary. 'The conduct forbidden by this tort is an act that threatens violence.'
English tort law concerns the compensation for harm to people's rights to health and safety, a clean environment, property, their economic interests, or their reputations. A "tort" is a wrong in civil law, rather than criminal law, that usually requires a payment of money to make up for damage that is caused. Alongside contracts and unjust enrichment, tort law is usually seen as forming one of the three main pillars of the law of obligations.
An intentional tort is a category of torts that describes a civil wrong resulting from an intentional act on the part of the tortfeasor. 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.
Canadian tort law is composed of two parallel systems: a common law framework outside Québec and a civil law framework within Québec. Outside Québec, Canadian tort law originally derives from that of England and Wales but has developed distinctly since Canadian Confederation in 1867 and has been influenced by jurisprudence in other common law jurisdictions. Meanwhile, while private law as a whole in Québec was originally derived from that which existed in France at the time of Québec's annexation into the British Empire, it was overhauled and codified first in the Civil Code of Lower Canada and later in the current Civil Code of Quebec, which codifies most elements of tort law as part of its provisions on the broader law of obligations. As most aspects of tort law in Canada are the subject of provincial jurisdiction under the Canadian Constitution, tort law varies even between the country's common law provinces and territories.
Wilkinson v Downton[1897] EWHC 1 (QB), [1897] 2 QB 57 is an English tort law decision in which the Common Law first recognised the tort of intentional infliction of mental shock. At the time, this was not covered under the law of negligence.
Campbell v Mirror Group Newspapers Ltd[2004] UKHL 22 was a House of Lords decision regarding human rights and privacy in English law.
Letang v Cooper[1964] EWCA Civ 5 is an English Court of Appeal judgment, by which it was decided that negligently caused personal injury cannot be recovered under the trespass to the person, but the tort of negligence must be tried instead.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and introduction to tort law in common law jurisdictions:
Addis v Gramophone Co Ltd [1909] AC 488 is an old English contract law and UK labour law case, which used to restrict damages for non-pecuniary losses for breach of contract.
Privacy in English law is a rapidly developing area of English law that considers situations where individuals have a legal right to informational privacy - the protection of personal or private information from misuse or unauthorized disclosure. Privacy law is distinct from those laws such as trespass or assault that are designed to protect physical privacy. Such laws are generally considered as part of criminal law or the law of tort. Historically, English common law has recognized no general right or tort of privacy, and offered only limited protection through the doctrine of breach of confidence and a "piecemeal" collection of related legislation on topics like harassment and data protection. The introduction of the Human Rights Act 1998 incorporated into English law the European Convention on Human Rights. Article 8.1 of the ECHR provided an explicit right to respect for a private life. The Convention also requires the judiciary to "have regard" to the Convention in developing the common law.
Mohr v. Williams, 104 N.W. 12 is a decision of the Minnesota Supreme Court authored by Calvin L. Brown. For almost a century, this case has been used in first-year Torts classes in American law schools to teach students about consent.
Trespass in English law is an area of tort law broadly divided into three groups: trespass to the person, trespass to goods, and trespass to land.
Tort law in India is primarily governed by judicial precedent as in other common law jurisdictions, supplemented by statutes governing damages, civil procedure, and codifying common law torts. As in other common law jurisdictions, a tort is breach of a non-contractual duty which has caused damage to the plaintiff giving rise to a civil cause of action and for which remedy is available. If a remedy does not exist, a tort has not been committed since the rationale of tort law is to provide a remedy to the person who has been wronged.
Watkins v Home Office and others[2006] UKHL 17, was a United Kingdom legal case heard by the House of Lords where the Home Office made an appeal as to whether the tort of misfeasance in public office was actionable in the absence of proof of pecuniary losses or injury of a mental or physical nature. The appeal was upheld, ruling that the tort of misfeasance in public office is never actionable without proof of material damage as defined by Lord Bingham of Cornhill.
