The common law tort of battery is an intentional contact that is harmful or offensive, made to the plaintiff’s person or to some logical extension of the plaintiff’s person, without consent or other privilege. It differs from the common law crime of battery. The tort of battery requires an actual contact. An assault on the other hand is to put someone in the apprehension of a harmful or offensive contact. Either assault or battery or both may be present in a given act depending on the circumstances.
In the case of Elliot v. Porter, the court held that it knew of no authority for deciding that, in a case in which several persons were found guilty of taking the same thing from the same owner, that a judgment in detinue against any one of them should bar a suit against another of them, either for the detention or the for the conversion of that same thing. The court held that a judgment against one of those who are severally and jointly liable by contract, or for assault and battery, would not extinguish the same plaintiff's legal cause of action against any one of the others whom he might have sued. Therefore there can be no reason for making a judgment in detinue a bar to another action of detinue or trover against another defendant for the same cause of action for the taking of the same property from the same owner.
In Re Del Rio was a case wherein a bail bondsman was accused of committing a battery. Mr. Goldfarb was a licensed bail bondsman with a firm having offices one block from Recorder’s Court. He was charged in a complaint with assault and battery and he was arraigned and demanded a jury trial before Judge Kadela. Judge Kadela was absent from Court for approximately three weeks when Judge Del Rio was on his way to work and saw the assistant prosecuting attorney assigned to Judge Kadela’s court. Judge Del Rio advised him that the Goldfarb case would be tried within a few days and that he should have his witnesses present.
Kirby v. Foster is an example of a situation in which a person used physical force to recover property. The general rule is that physical force cannot be used merely to recover property if there is no threat of violence. In that case a bookkeeper had been suspected of stealing money or was otherwise deemed responsible for its loss. The amount was deducted from his pay. When he went to distribute salaries he withheld the amount that had been deducted from his own salary, on the advice of his lawyer. In that case the defendant was liable to the plaintiff for battery.
If a defendant is found to have caused a battery, he is responsible for all of the damages caused. In one important case, Vosburg v. Putney, one school boy gave another school boy a light kick below the knee. The kick exacerbated an earlier injury and eventually the plaintiff suffered serious injuries. In that case the defendant was liable because the defendant is liable for all damages, whether or not they were foreseeable.
The case Ward v. Blackwood involved a battery committed against a prison warden. Massey was the victim of the battery and the original plaintiff. Massey died before the suit was resolved and his administrator Ward continued the suit. Massey had negligently fallen asleep while on duty and permitted several convicts to escape. Blackwood beat him when he discovered that the convicts were missing.