Hi, you're listening to the Australian Law Student Law Info
podcast. Your go to source for legal
insights in 4 minutes or less. I'm Nick Hodgkinson and today
we're talking about our second intentional tort assault.
But first, our obligatory disclaimer.
The law info is produced by law students.
For law students it is not, nor is it intended to constitute
legal advice. If you require legal assistance,
you should contact your local Law Society who can direct you
appropriately. For more information on the
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ozlawstudent.com OK Assault. It's our second intentional
tour. It's not just about physical
harm, it involves perception and intent.
Legally assault can be said to occur when someone intentionally
needs another person to believe that they're on the brink of
immediate harm and you should refer here to Brady and Shatzle.
A quick note, the actual battery doesn't need to occur in order
to bring a legal action for assault.
Think of it as a pre emptive strike.
Acts and words can be sufficient for assault, but this can affect
the quantum your client might receive when a court orders
damages. Damages are something that we
will discuss later in the series.
So what sets assault apart from the other intentional torts?
Well, assault boils down to the plaintiff having had a
reasonable apprehension of imminent contact.
Reasonableness will be assessed as whether the defendant has had
a clear ability to carry out the battery.
Assault is not about empty threats.
Consider this scenario. Aiming an apparently loaded
rifle constituted assault even when the rifle turned out to be
empty. Note the crux here is how a
reasonable person would interpret the situation giving
more weight to perception than the actual threat.
As with battery, we still need to establish positiveness,
directness, and intention, and you can refer to the first
episode for more on that. With intention, per Hall and
Fonseca, we look at the defendant's intention to use
force or to create that apprehension in the plaintiff.
Let's run over some hypotheticals that help test our
knowledge of assault. How immediate must a threat be
for a plaintiff's apprehension to be reasonable?
If the defendant threatens to go home, fetch a gun, and return
for a showdown, is that sufficient?
What if the defendant wasn't armed initially?
What if the defendant's gun is a water pistol, which they
represent is a functioning and loaded gun to the plaintiff?
You should think about how different degrees of immediacy
and reasonableness can alter the strength of your argument.
And there we have at the second episode of the Australian Law,
Students, Law in Four podcast, a swift exploration of the
fascinating world of intentional torts.
Join us next time on the Australian Law Student Law in
Four podcast where we discuss false imprisonment.
As always, if you have any suggestions, please e-mail us at
team at the Oslo student.com or leave a comment in your review
on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.