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- n. entering another person's property without permission of the owner or his/her agent and without lawful authority (like that given to a health inspector) and causing any damage, no matter how slight.
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Trespass is knowingly entering another owners’ property or land without permission, which encroaches on the owners’ privacy or property interests. There are many laws relating to trespass.
- Statute of Limitation
A statute of limitations is any law that bars claims after a...
- Reasonable Care
The level of care that a reasonable person would exercise in...
- Statute of Limitation
Sep 2, 2024 · Trespass is not of itself a criminal offence. However there are some offences in which trespass is an essential element and this guidance sets out the most commonly encountered examples of...
Maintained | Practice notes | England, Wales. A note discussing the court procedure under CPR 55 for obtaining possession of property occupied for residential purposes. The note looks at: Common types of claim where this procedure should be followed. Protection from eviction.
- Battery
- Assault
- Defences to Assault and Battery
- False Imprisonment
- Defences to False Imprisonment
- Wilkinson V Downton and Indirect Trespass
- Harassment
Battery simply involves the intentional and direct application of force to another person (either to their body or via their clothing). It is essential to note that it does not require injury or objective harm - an individual has a straightforward right to not be physically touched or moved by another person.
Not to be confused with the everyday meaning of assault (as in attack), assault in criminal and tort law refers to situations in which an individual “causes another person to apprehend the infliction of immediate, unlawful force on his person”, as per Collins v Wilcock[1984] 1 WLR 1172. It often goes hand-in-hand with battery, since there will ofte...
Lawful Authority
Those with lawful authority will be protected from being held liable of either assault or battery. Thus, under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 the police can use reasonable force in order to arrest somebody (amongst other activities). Similarly, medical professionals can use reasonable force within certain situations specified by the Mental Health Act 1983. It is important to note that people with lawful authority do not have the authority to do as they will - they still have to act...
Self-Defence
As can be seen in Collins, an individual can use reasonable force to protect themselves against either an actual or perceived threat of harm against themselves or another person. The force must be proportionate to the threat - since the purpose of the force is to repel to threat, it must be no more substantive than is necessary to do that. This principle can be seen in Revill v Newbury[1996] 2 WLR 239. The defendant owned an allotment and a shed, in which he had taken to keeping valuable item...
Parental Authority
Whilst becoming increasingly unpopular, parents still have a right to use physical force to chastise a child (often colloquialised as ‘smacking’.) This right has important limits, however. The level of force inflicted must be proportional to the child’s behaviour (and has, in any case, an upper limit), and if the child does not understand the purpose of the punishment, the defence will fail. This can be seen in A v UK[1998] 2 FLR 959. ‘A’ was an eight year old whose doctor notified the author...
False imprisonment is restraint without lawful authorisation. It is essentially the tort of either directly holding a victim in one place (in which case it will overlap with battery), or else creating a set of circumstances that prevents the victim from leaving. Like assault and battery, no harm is required before this tort becomes actionable. Inde...
Reasonable Condition of Release
If the claimant is being detained on the basis that they need to meet a reasonable condition, then this will form a defence to a claim of false imprisonment. This can be seen in Robinson v Balmain New Ferry Co. Ltd[1910] AC 295. The claimant paid a penny to enter a wharf via a turnstile so that he could board a ferry. He then decided to not wait for the ferry, and attempted to go back through the turnstile. However, as noted by a sign on both sides of the turnstile, there was a charge of a pe...
Lawful Authority
As with assault and battery, the police have a reasonable right to restrain individuals in particular circumstances. However, if these circumstances are not in place, then cases can be brought against them for false imprisonment. This is usually based on the concept of reasonable belief on the part of the police officer involved that the claimant has committed, or is about to commit an offence. This is a significant area of liability for the police, and so is covered in greater detail in poli...
Consent and Contributory Negligence
As noted above, individuals can explicitly or impliedly consent to temporary imprisonment of some kind, as in Robinson. It is also feasible that an individual might contribute to their own detention - someone who pretends to shoplift and is then kept for longer than necessary by a security guard, for example, will reasonably be regarded as having contributed to the situation.
Although largely subsumed by the torts of negligence and harassment, the case of Wilkinson v Downton provides an action based on the infliction of indirect harm on another. This is essentially the tort of communicating information designed and intended to harm the well-being of an individual. The elements of liability were more recently laid out in...
Thanks to the Harassment Act 1997, the tort of harassment now has a statutory definition. Its three elements are mentioned in s.1 of the act: “a course of conduct that the defendant knows or ought to know amounts to harassment of another.”
Trespass to land occurs where a person directly enters upon another's land without permission, or remains upon the land, or places or projects. This tort is actionable per se without the need to prove damage.
The issue in trespass is whether the patient consented to what was being done, and the issue in negligence is whether the patient should have been informed of the risks. Every adult has the right to refuse medical treatment even if it will result in permanent injury or even death.
There are three main trespasses to the person; Assault, Battery and False Imprisonment. These are actionable per se – which means that a case can be brought even if the claimant suffered no actual damage. It is enough that the act was carried out.
