What Are Intentional Torts?

When a person is injured, it’s most often because of negligence. This happens when one person owed someone else a duty and, for one reason or another, breached that duty, resulting in harm. What’s important to note here is that this harm is not intentional. It could have been caused by an accident or an honest mistake, but there was no bad faith or ill intent involved. Occasionally, however, people do set out to intentionally harm others. These actions are known as “intentional torts,” and they can result in severe harm to plaintiffs and severe, possibly criminal, repercussions for defendants.

Let’s take a look at some of the most common intentional torts and how people are harmed by them.

• Assault/Battery: Assault and battery often go hand in hand. To put it simply, battery occurs when one person physically injures another person, whether it is done intentionally or recklessly. An assault is merely the threat to commit a battery on another person.
• False Imprisonment: False imprisonment is the unlawful restraint of a person against his or her will by someone without the authority to do so. This detention must be willful, without the other person’s consent, and the result of either physical restraint or restraint through the threat of violence.
• Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress: It may strike some as odd that you can sue someone for causing you emotional distress, but intentional infliction of emotional distress is more than mere taunting or name-calling. It is behavior that is so vicious that it creates severe psychological trauma in the victim. Under New York law, intentional infliction of emotional distress occurs when a person, through extreme or outrageous behavior, intentionally causes severe emotional distress, mental trauma, and/or bodily harm to another.
• Fraud: Fraud in the civil sphere refers to behaviors that involve bad faith or lying, especially when another person is harmed by the bad faith or lie. In most cases, an allegation of fraud must include (1) a misrepresentation of material fact, (2) by a person who knows it to be false, (3) to a person who relies on the misrepresentation, and (4) actual injury or loss from this reliance.

While it’s very common for these actions to be charged as crimes, especially assault, battery, and fraud, a person who is injured by the commission of an intentional tort may also sue the perpetrator in civil court to obtain damages.