Question

Given below are Legal Principles followed by a Factual Situation. Apply the principles followed by a factual Situation. Apply the principle to it and select the most appropriate answer for question among the four choices given.
LEGAL PRINCIPLE: Whoever uses force without any lawful justification commits battery.
FACTUAL SITUATION: Mary and Maya have an argument on an issue in a classroom. In order to take a revenge over this Mary tries to humiliate Maya in front of the others classmates, by pulling the chair the moment she was about to sit on the chair. Though Maya falls, she is not hurt. However she files a case against Mary for battery.
Question: Is Mary liable?

• A. Mary is not liable because Maya was not hurt
• B. Maya is not liable because their argument justified her action
• C. Mary is not liable because it did not require any force to pull the chair out before Maya sit
• D. Mary is liable because her action was not justified

Answer 1

The correct option is D Mary is liable because her action was not justified

• Battery is referred to as an intentional tort involving unwanted physical contact, that may or may not cause physical harm. The four essential requirements:
  

(1) Intent: the person accused of committing the act must have intended to cause some unwanted contact and not necessarily the harm that has been caused.

(2) Contact: It refers to a non-consensual contact that is made with the victim or to the victim's extended personality i.e. on any property on the body of the victim.

(3) Harm: It is not necessary to prove any actual physical injury. Rather the plaintiff must prove an unpermitted contact in a harmful or offensive manner.

(4) Damages: it includes physical, emotional or monetary harm.

• In the present instance, all these instances have been proved against Mary.