Dr. Mrs.

Ragini Khubalkar
raginikhubalkar@gmail.com
Trespass to person

• Wrongs against an individual’s person, liberty and

security.
• Both remedies available civil as well as criminal
action as his right to personal security is threatened
unlawfully by another.
• Example: ‘A’ beats ‘B’ with lathi. Under tortious
liability ‘B’ can institute a suit for recovery of
damages.
Such threats resulting from bodily harm or
restraint may be termed as ‘Trespass to
Person’ and can be studied under the
following heading:
• Assault
• Battery and
• False imprisonment or Wrongful confinement
 Fowler Vs. Lanning (1959) 1 All ER 291

Propositions of trespass to person

have been laid down as
• i) Either intention or negligence is essential for an action for trespass to
the person.
• ii) The onus of proving either intention or negligence on the part of the
defendant lies on the plaintiff.
• Neither intention nor negligence was alleged by the plaintiff who was
injured by a shot from the defendant’s gun. It was held that since the claim
lacked an allegation of intention or negligence, it was struck out as no cause
of action in trespass to the person, the burden of proving negligence lies in
the plaintiff.
 1. Assault
• Assault means laying of hands or an attempt to do a
corporeal (physical) hurt to another, by using some
force without any lawful justification .

• One person brings some material object (ground -

in case pulling a chair from under him) in contact
with the person of the other.
• In assault the force is not actually applied but only
attempt is made.
 Section 351 of IPC defines ‘Assault’

• Whoever makes any gesture, or any preparation intending or

knowing it to be likely that such gesture or preparation will cause
any person present to apprehend that he who makes that gesture
or preparation is about to use criminal force to that person, is said
to commit as assault.
• (a) A shakes his fist at Z, intending or knowing it to be likely that he
may thereby cause Z to believe that A is about to strike Z, A has
committed an assault.
• Section 352IPC-punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which
may extend to three months, or with fine which may extend to five hundred, or
with both.
 Essential Elements of Assault
• Threat of Force or Violence;
• Reasonable apprehension of such force and
• Defendant’s ability or capability to carry out
the threat
Battery : It is intentional application of
force to another person without any
lawful justification
It is the actual application of force to the
person of another done without
justification in rude, angry, insolent or
vengeful manner
Battery corresponds to the offence known
as the use of criminal force, which is
stated in 350 of the IPC

Whoever intentionally uses force to any person,

without that person's consent, in order to the
committing of any offence, or intending by the
use of such force to cause, or knowing it to be
likely that by the use of such force he will
cause injury, fear or annoyance to the person
to whom the force is used, is said to use
criminal force to that other.
Section 349 IPC -FORCE
• A person is said to use force to another if he causes motion,
change of motion, or cessation of motion to that other, or if he
causes to any substance such motion, or change of motion, or
cessation of motion as brings that substance into contact with
any part of that other's body, or with anything which that other
wearing or carrying, or with anything so situated that such
contact affects that other's sense of feeling: provided that the
person causing the motion, or change of motion, or cessation
of motion causes that motion, change of motion, or cessation
of motion in one of the three ways hereinafter described.
First: - By his own bodily power.
Secondly: - By disposing any substance in such a manner that the
motion or change or cessation of motion takes place without any
further act on his part, or on the part of any other person.
Thirdly: - By inducing any animal to move, to change its motion,
or to cease to move.
 Essential elements
• Use of force

• The force should be intentional and without

lawful justification
 Hurt
vs,
Picture Theatres
Ltd.
[1915 KB1]
where man was under
a mistaken belief forceably
turned out of the cinema
show
 3. False imprisonment {wrongful
confinement}
• The total restraint of a person’s liberty without
lawful justification
Wrongful confinement
Whoever wrongfully restrains
any person in such a manner as
to prevent that person from
proceeding beyond certain
circumscribing limits, is said
“wrongfully to confine” that
person.

• A places men with firearms at the outlets of a

building, and tells Z that they will fire at Z if Z
attempts leave the building. A wrongfully
confines Z.
 Essential elements:
1)Total restraint or complete deprivation of liberty:
• Bird Vs. Jones (1845)7Q.B.742
• The defendant wrongfully
enclosed a public
footway to witness a
boat race.
The plaintiff insisted
on passing through the
enclosed footway
to pass through the
other side
2. Without Lawful justification
 Remedies

• Damages
• Self help
• Writ of Habeas Corpus