Garratt v. Dailey
Supreme Court of
46 Wash.2d 197, 279 P.2d
1091.
Prosser, p. 17-20
Facts: Garratt is an arthritic old lady. Dailey is a kid. Garrett started to sit down, but Dailey moved
the chair she was going to sit in before she could sit down, and she fell and
was injured. She sued Dailey for battery. The lower court found for the defendant, and
the plaintiff appealed to the State Supreme Court, asking for damages or a new
trial.
Issue: Did the defendant intend to cause harm to the
plaintiff?
Rule: If the defendant “knew with substantial certainty”
that his actions would cause harmful contact, then the defendant is liable for
battery.
Analysis: The judge relies on the Restatement for guidance.
Conclusion: The court remanded the case back to the trial court
for clarification. The court instructed
the trial court to determine whether the defendant “knew with substantial
certainty” that he would cause harmful contact.
The trial court subsequently found for the plaintiff and awarded her
damages.
Notes and Questions
1.
I
think one way Ms. Garratt’s lawyer could prove actual damages is to introduce
Ms. Garratt’s medical bills from her fractured hip as evidence at trial. Maybe if she has to buy a bunch of
painkillers as she recovers, she can bring in the receipts from the drug
store. If she worked and was missing
work due to the injury, I suppose she can cite her lost wages.
2.
If
I were the trial judge, my confidence in my original findings of fact would be
shaken even if the case were remanded purely on the basis of law. I would feel as though if I had done right in
my factfinding, the appellate court probably would have been more likely to let
small legal issues slide. I would also
feel like I would want to do something different so that the delay was,
in effect, worth it.
3.
The
appellate court said that you can be liable for battery whether you’re “five or
fifty-five”. It seems as though there
must be some limit to this. It’s hard to
imagine that a newborn baby, for example, is capable of volitional
action. Most of what they do could be
said to be involuntary. So where
do you draw the line? I suppose you can
say it’s a matter for the factfinder to consider. When we say “fault”, do we simply mean
liability? In the bow and arrow case,
the boy’s liability would depend on whether he knew with “substantial certainty”
that firing the bow and arrow would cause harm.
If he was aiming at the girl, it seems very possible that he
knew. It would be different if this were
a Nerf bow and arrow versus a real bow and arrow.
4.
This
is clearly battery if we can say the two-year-old is capable of intending
anything. In particular, if the
two-year-old subjectively knew that the infant was a person and not an object
or food or something, then it’s not hard to be substantially certain that you’re
going to harm that other person.
5.
Newborns
probably don’t have malice; I know from personal experience that six-year-olds
can have a malicious state of mind. This
should be a matter for the factfinder to determine.