A single confrontation can produce several intentional-tort claims. Assault, battery, false imprisonment, and intentional infliction of emotional distress may arise from the same sequence of events, but they are not interchangeable. Each protects a different interest and requires different proof.
Assault Protects Against Imminent Apprehension
Assault generally requires an intentional act that causes another person reasonably to anticipate imminent harmful or offensive contact. Physical contact is not required. Timing and perception are critical: a threat of future harm may be insufficient, while a present threat supported by the apparent ability to act can create the required apprehension.
Battery Protects Bodily Integrity
Battery involves intentional harmful or offensive contact. The contact need not cause serious injury. Touching can be offensive when it violates a reasonable sense of personal dignity, and contact can occur indirectly through an object closely associated with the person.
False Imprisonment Protects Freedom of Movement
False imprisonment requires intentional confinement within fixed boundaries without lawful privilege. Confinement may be created by physical force, barriers, threats, or asserted authority. A known safe and reasonable exit can defeat the confinement element, while an escape route involving significant danger or humiliation ordinarily does not.
IIED Requires More Than Ordinary Insult or Conflict
Intentional infliction of emotional distress generally requires extreme and outrageous conduct, the required mental state, causation, and severe emotional distress. The threshold is intentionally high. Ordinary arguments, threats, indignities, or rude behavior usually do not become IIED merely because they are upsetting.
Defenses Must Be Analyzed Separately
Self-defense and defense of others can privilege conduct that would otherwise constitute assault or battery if the actor reasonably believes intervention is necessary and uses proportionate force. Mistake can complicate the analysis, particularly when the actor intervenes based on an incorrect understanding of the circumstances. The effect of mistake depends on the tort, the privilege asserted, and the jurisdiction.
A Better Fact-Pattern Method
- Break the event into separate acts.
- Identify the tort potentially created by each act.
- Apply every element to the facts.
- Analyze privileges and defenses for that particular act.
- Address damages only after liability is established.
This method prevents one dramatic fact from controlling the entire analysis. An actor may commit battery but not IIED, assault at one point but not another, or confinement that becomes privileged because of lawful justification. Precision comes from separating the claims.