Farwell v. Boston, etc., Railroad Corporation.. Crispin v. Babbitt... Mast v. Kern.... CHAPTER II. WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACTS. Ives v. South Buffalo Ry. Co..... 837 844 847 851 LEADING ILLUSTRATIVE CASES LAW OF TORTS PART I TRESPASS CHAPTER I. TRESPASS TO THE PERSON-BATTERY-ASSAULT— FALSE IMPRISONMENT. Battery-Examples. COLE v. TURNER. 6 Modern Reports 149 (Eng.). 1704. HOLT, C. J., upon evidence in trespass for assault and battery, declared, First, That the least touching of another in anger is a battery. Second, If two or more meet in a narrow passage, and, without any violence or design of harm, the one touches the other gently, it will be no battery. Third, If any of them use violence against the other, to force his way in a rude, inordinate manner, it will be a battery; or any struggle about the passage to that degree as may do hurt will be a battery. ROBY, J. Battery-Horseplay. REYNOLDS v. PIERSON. 29 Ind. App. 273, 64 N. E. 484. 1902. * * It was averred in the complaint that appellant, in a rude and insolent manner, unlawfully assaulted the plaintiff with force and violence, and committed an assault and battery upon him, by reason of which he received injuries to his damage. There is very little conflict in the evidence. The plaintiff, a man 68 years of age, engaged in business at the Union Stock Yards, in Indianapolis, was standing in one of the alleyways of the Interstate Stock Yards in said city. He was greeted as he came up by one William O. Trotter, who addressed him as "Uncle John," took hold of his left arm or coat sleeve, shook him, and inquired jokingly whether he had come over to the new yards to run them out of business. There were a number of other parties present. Appellant, who was a large man, weighing about 225 pounds, 35 years of age, came walking briskly down to the yards from the office building, and as he passed Trotter, who was still holding Pierson's arm or sleeve, appellant took hold of his arm and jerked and pulled him with sufficient force so that Pierson, upon whose arm Trotter retained his hold, was thereby thrown and injured. Appellant passed on down the alley, and did not at the time notice that Pierson was thrown or hurt. The appellant's claim is: That no intention to injure Pierson existed; that he was on good terms with both Pierson and Trotter. They were he and Trotter-accustomed to the kind of greeting and sport appellant attempted to engage Trotter in. It was their usual and customary greeting. That the injury suffered by plaintiff was an extraordinary, unusual, and unnatural result, and not such as might have been reasonably expected from the act, and therefore not the proximate effect of the act complained of; that the injury was the result of a pure accident. The facts shown are sufficient to condemn the habit of so-called "horse play" between grown men. The defense relied upon has been many times tersely expressed by younger people in the phrase, "I didn't mean to." Plaintiff was injured through no fault of his own. His right to be secure in person was violated. The appellant was responsible therefor. His act was the primary cause of the plaintiff's injury. The verdict of the jury is not, therefore, unsupported. The evidence also justified the legal conclusion that there was such a reckless disregard of consequences on the part of the appellant as to imply an intention to assault plaintiff. The evidence supplies grounds for inferring the constructive intent which makes a wrongful act willful. There is no reason why the appellant might not have passed without interfering with the person of any one, and his failure to do so implies the willingness to inflict an injury which in fact he did inflict. Mercer v. Corbin, 117 Ind. 450-453, 20 N. E. 132, 3 L. R. A. 221, 10 Am. St. Rep. 76; Peterson v. Haffner, 59 Ind. 130, 26 Am. Rep. 81. Appellant took hold of Trotter, and by force applied to him, and through him, communicated to the plaintiff, caused the plaintiff to be thrown and injured. In Peterson v. Haffner, supra, the medium or instrument by means of which the injury was inflicted was some mortar picked up and thrown. The character of the instrument used in committing an assault is immaterial, so far as the legal consequences thereof are concerned. Battery-Drunkenness of Assailant. REESE v. BARBEE. 61 Miss. 181. 1883. 蓉 CHALMERS, J. The case has been tried the second time in the court below, and has resulted in a verdict of $976 for the plaintiff, from which the defendant appeals. The only assignment of error presented is to the action of the court below in instructing the jury that drunkenness of the defendant at the time of the commission of the assault was no defense against the action for damages, but was "an element aggravating said assault." The addition of the words, "an element aggravating said assault," it is insisted, was erroneous, since as the defendant would have been fully liable for his acts if sober, he could not be more so if drunk. * * We have found no case adjudicating the point in a civil case except as to actions of slander, as to which the authorities differ, but we think the instruction was certainly correct under the facts of this case. Here a pregnant woman was advanced upon by a drunken man, pointing a drawn pistol at her and threatening to shoot. The terror into which she was thereby thrown was undoubtedly increased, and the disastrous consequences which thereupon ensued perhaps rendered more inevitable, by reason of the intoxicated condition of her assailant, since that condi * |