Wilson v Pringle
A battery requires an intentional touching that is hostile, although hostility does not mean ill will, and the touching must go beyond what is generally acceptable in ordinary life.
Facts
Two schoolboys, aged 13, were in a school corridor. One of them, the defendant, pulled the other's school bag off his shoulder as a prank, causing him to fall and injure his hip. The injured boy sued for trespass to the person, and asked for summary judgment on the basis that the defendant had admitted an intentional touching.
Legal principle
The Court of Appeal held that summary judgment should not be given, and the case should go to trial. Croom-Johnson LJ said that, for a battery, there must be an intentional touching or contact in one form or another of the claimant by the defendant, and that the touching must be proved to be a hostile touching. Hostility does not mean ill will or malevolence, but the touching must be outside what is generally acceptable in the ordinary conduct of daily life. The hostility requirement was later doubted in Re F.
Related cases on trespass to the person
- Austin v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis [2009] UKHL 5, [2009] 1 AC 564
- Bird v Jones (1845) 7 QB 742
- Collins v Wilcock [1984] 1 WLR 1172
- F v West Berkshire Health Authority (Re F (Mental Patient: Sterilisation)) [1990] 2 AC 1
- Herd v Weardale Steel, Coal and Coke Co Ltd [1915] AC 67
- Letang v Cooper [1965] 1 QB 232
- Meering v Grahame-White Aviation Co Ltd (1919) 122 LT 44
- Murray v Ministry of Defence [1988] 1 WLR 692
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