At common law, battery is the tort of intentionally (or, in Australia, negligently) and volitionally bringing about an unconsented harmful or offensive contact with a person or to something closely associated with them (i.e. a hat, a purse, etc.). It is a form of trespass to the person. As distinguished from assault, battery requires an actual contact. The contact need not be with the tortfeasor but the tortfeasor may bring about the contact with something else. For example, A runs over B with his car. This is a battery. Battery is actionable per se, meaning that a claim for the tort may succeed without proof of damage.
Intent: All jurisdictions define intent to mean purpose to bring about a consequence or having substantial certainty that a
consequence will occur. This is an objective standard.
In the United States, the common law defines the contact for battery as "harmful or
offensive". The offensive prong is determined by the reasonable person standard. Looking at a contact objectively, as a
reasonable person would see it, would this contact be offensive? Thus, a hypersenstive person would fail on a battery action if
jostled by fellow passengers on a subway, as this contact is expected in normal society and a reasonable person would not find it
offensive. Harmful is defined by any physical damage to the body.
Battery need not require body-to-body contact. Any volitional movement, such as throwing an object toward another, can constitute
battery. Touching an object "intimately connected" to a person (such as an object he or she is holding) can also be battery.
Intent can be transferred with battery, i.e. a person swings to hit one person and misses and hits another. He or she is still
liable for a battery.
The standard defenses to trespass to the person, namely necessity and consent, apply to battery. As practical examples, under the first, a physician may touch a person without that person's consent in order to render medical aid to him or her in an emergency. Under the second, a person who has, either expressly or impliedly, consented to participation in a contact sport cannot claim in battery against other participants for a contact permitted by the rules of that sport.
See also
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