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The fault system recognizes negligence as one kind of fault and intent as another.
Let's change the story.
Suppose hypothetically that Mr. Kendall was angry at Mr. Brown.
He struck him in the face with a stick on purpose, injuring his eye.
Now he would be civilly liable not for negligence, but
for an intentional tort, the tort called battery.
Battery is defined as purposefully or knowingly causing harmful or
offensive contact with another.
Kendall can be taken to court by Brown if he negligently caused injury or
if he intentionally caused an injury.
By the way, and this is an important point, some torts are also crimes.
Battery is also a crime in American law.
So if you hit someone on purpose or stab them or shoot them,
you can be prosecuted for a crime by the public authorities and be fined or jailed.
And on top of that, your victim can sue you and recover money damages.
If you steal from someone, you could be prosecuted for theft as a crime, but
also privately sued for the tort of trespass to property or conversion.
There are many intentional torts.
Battery is only one.
Assault is another, along with false imprisonment, trespass to land and
chattel, conversion or civil theft, infliction of emotional distress,
defamation, invasion of privacy, interference with a contract, and
a few others.
The list of intentional torts is finite, and like all of tort law,
subject to change.
It used to be a tort to steal the affection of a man's wife or daughter.
It no longer is in the age of gender equality.
Invasion of privacy was not a tort until the courts began to recognize it in
the early 20th century in response to technology that made it possible for
commercial photographers to use people's photographs without their permission.
The fault system allows for defenses and excuses.
With a good defense or excuse, you can avoid tort liability even for
intentionally harming somebody or their property.
Let me introduce another true story,
this one involving a case of intentional injury from 1971.
A woman and her husband, Mr.
and Mrs. Briney, owned a house inherited from her parents.
The house was in a remote area and
they preferred to live elsewhere, so they boarded up the house, furnishings and all.
Now, for many years, whenever they would visit the house,
they discovered that thieves had broken in and stolen various household items.
The husband got fed up.
He decided he would address the problem by setting up
a shotgun trap in the bedroom of the house.
He wired up the gun such that opening the door of the bedroom would cause the gun to
go off and injure the lower body of an adult-sized person in its path.
Mr. Katko and a friend went to the Brineys' house to steal bottles and
jars for their antique collection.
They ignored a large no trespassing sign posted outside the house.
They broke in.
When Katko opened the bedroom door,
the spring-gun trap went off just as Bernie had planned, and
Katko was shot in the legs, causing severe permanent injuries and deformities.
Katko sued Mr. and Mrs. Briney for battery, but they snapped back with
a defense that has tempted many Americans, defense of property.
We have a right to defend our property from thieves, they argued.
The appeals court decided differently.
Although property is important, human life and limb is more important.
If thieves threaten a person in their home,
use of a gun in self-defense is often permissible.
But use of a gun to protect property in an unoccupied house is not justifiable.
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