Battery
Chapter Twenty-One
Syllabus topic 2.1, "Trespass to Person: Assault, Battery, Mayhem, False imprisonment."
Pages 92 to 94 of 434
In one line
Battery is the actual application of force to another person, however slight, without his consent and without lawful justification.
In the wording a student can write in an exam: battery is the intentional and direct application of physical force to the person of another without lawful justification; the force may be of the slightest kind and no injury need result, since the tort is actionable per se; it is committed as much by contact through an object or a substance as by the hand, and it is answered by consent, private defence, necessity, lawful arrest and lawful authority.
The essentials
1. Use of force. Any physical contact suffices. Spitting on a person, throwing water at him, snatching a book from his hand, pulling a chair away as he sits down and setting a dog on him are each a battery. The force need not be violent and need not hurt.
2. Without lawful justification. The contact must be one the law does not permit. This is where consent, private defence, necessity and lawful authority operate.
3. Directness. The force must be applied by the defendant's act, immediately. Contact through an instrument or a missile is direct; harm that follows later as a consequence is not.
4. Intention, or at least a voluntary act. The defendant must have meant the act. He need not have meant the harm, and he need not have known who would be struck.
Damage is NOT an essential. A battery is complete when the contact happens.
What is not a battery
The ordinary contact of daily life. Being jostled in a crowded train, tapped on the shoulder to attract attention, or brushed against in a queue is not actionable, because such contacts are generally accepted as unavoidable.
Contact with consent. A surgeon who operates with consent, a barber who cuts hair, a player tackled in a game, and a passenger who takes a crowded bus have all consented, expressly or by implication, to contact of that kind. Chapter [Volenti Non Fit Injuria] sets out the limits, and the consent extends only to the ordinary risks of the activity.
Contact by an involuntary act. A person pushed into another, or moving in a fit, has not acted voluntarily.
Contact justified by law. A police officer making a lawful arrest, a parent restraining a child, a person using reasonable force in private defence.
The criminal counterpart
The penal law does not use the word battery. Section 129 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 defines criminal force: intentionally using force to any person without that person's consent, in order to commit an offence, or intending or knowing it likely that the force will cause injury, fear or annoyance to the person to whom it is used. Section 131 punishes assault or criminal force otherwise than on grave and sudden provocation.
Battery
So the same act may be a battery in tort and criminal force under the Sanhita, and the two proceedings run independently.
A worked example
Anil is annoyed with Bhaskar at a wedding. Consider four things he might do.
One. He throws a glass of water over Bhaskar. That is a battery. Contact through a substance is contact, no injury is needed, and the humiliation is not the point.
Two. He pulls away the chair as Bhaskar sits down, and Bhaskar falls. That is a battery. The force is applied through the chair and the floor, and it is direct because the fall follows immediately from Anil's act.
Three. He tells a waiter to serve Bhaskar a dish he knows Bhaskar is allergic to, without warning him. That is not a battery, because the force is not applied directly by Anil; it may be negligence, and if Anil intended the harm it may be another wrong.
Four. He shakes Bhaskar's hand very firmly to say goodbye. That is not a battery. The contact is of the kind ordinarily accepted in social life, and Bhaskar consented to a handshake.
Distinctions that carry marks
| Battery | Assault | |
|---|---|---|
| Contact | Actual contact is essential | No contact at all |
| What is protected | Bodily integrity | Freedom from fear of immediate force |
| Order | May happen with no assault before it, as where a man is struck from behind | May happen with no battery after it |
| Damage | Not required | Not required |
| Battery | Negligence causing injury | |
|---|---|---|
| Nature of the act | Intentional and direct | Careless, and the harm consequential |
| Damage | Not required | Essential |
| Burden | The defendant justifies the contact | The plaintiff proves duty, breach and damage |
What it does NOT mean
It does not require injury. The tort is complete on contact.
It does not require anger. A touching without consent may be a battery although it was meant kindly, and hostility is not a separate ingredient in every case.
It does not require the defendant to have touched the plaintiff with his body. A stone, a stick, water, a dog or a vehicle will do.
It does not cover every unwanted contact. The jostling of ordinary life is outside the tort.
Quick revision
- Battery is the direct and intentional application of force to another without lawful justification.
- The least touching is enough; no injury need be proved; the tort is actionable per se.
- Contact through an object, a substance or an animal counts.
- Defences: consent, private defence, necessity, lawful arrest, lawful authority, parental authority.
- The ordinary contacts of daily life are not actionable.
- Criminal counterpart: section 129 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 defines criminal force, section 130 defines assault, and section 131 punishes either.
- Distinguish from assault, where there is no contact, and from negligence, where the harm is consequential and damage must be proved.
Battery
Test yourself
1. Define battery and state its essentials. Battery is the intentional and direct application of physical force to the person of another without lawful justification. Its essentials are the use of force, which may be of the slightest kind and need not cause injury; the absence of lawful justification, so that consent, private defence, necessity, lawful arrest and lawful authority all defeat the claim; directness, so that the contact must follow immediately from the defendant's act; and a voluntary act on the defendant's part, intending the contact though not necessarily the harm. Damage is not an essential, because the tort is actionable per se: the contact itself is the injury the law recognises.
2. Is contact through an object a battery? Yes. The force need not be applied by the defendant's body. Throwing water over a person, spitting at him, striking him with a stick, setting a dog on him, pulling away the chair he is sitting on and driving a vehicle at him are all batteries, because in each the force is applied directly by the defendant's own act operating through a thing. What matters is directness: contact that follows immediately from the act is a battery, while harm which results at one remove, as where a person later trips over an obstacle the defendant left, is consequential and belongs to negligence.
3. Are the everyday contacts of a crowded city actionable? No. Contacts that are generally accepted as unavoidable in ordinary life, such as being jostled in a crowded train, brushed against in a queue or tapped on the shoulder to attract attention, are not batteries. The law treats those who move about in public as having impliedly accepted them, and a rule to the contrary would make ordinary life impossible. The implied acceptance covers only contacts of that ordinary kind: a deliberate shove, a blow, or a touching that goes beyond what the situation requires remains a battery.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.