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If you need to punch someone in the face for self defense reasons....

Is the act of punching an intentional act or an accidental one?


In order to defend yourself you 'had to punch' the attacker to make him stop.

When you 'have to punch' someone...does that imply an accidental act or an intentional act?

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Van

Bzzzt. Thanks for playing, Mike.

I was concerned that outright claiming it was an accident would open me up to liability, anyway. But I think you're saying that I'm vulnerable to civil litigation either way, even if I'm destined to win, so I might as well have the insurance company paying for it.

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Mike

These conversations are essential to 'self preservation'_too bad not many more get involved because they will be in up to their necks if anything happens.

Let's take another look:

1. An intentional tort is a category of torts that describes a civil wrong resulting from an intentional act on the part of the tortfeasor.

The term negligence, on the other hand, pertains to a tort that simply results from the failure of the tortfeasor to take sufficient care in fulfilling a duty owed, while strict liability torts refers to situations where a party is liable for injuries no matter what precautions were taken.

2. As a matter of public policy, damages available for intentional torts tend to be broader and more generous than for negligent torts.

3. "The concept of 'intention' in the intentional torts does not require defendants to know that their acts will result in harm to the plaintiffs. Defendants must know only that their acts will result in certain consequences"

4. Here, "intent" means either purpose or "knowledge with substantial certainty," as elucidated in Garratt v. Dailey.

"Cause" in an intentional tort need only be "actual cause;" that is, but for the defendant's action the tortious result would not have occurred.

The plaintiff need not allege or prove proximate cause, which would indicate that the result of the defendant's actions was reasonably foreseeable.

5. Common law intentional torts include:
• Assault
• Battery
• Conversion
• False imprisonment
• Trespass to Land
• Trespass to Chattels (Personal property)
• Intentional infliction of emotional distress
• Fraud
• Invasion of privacy

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Van

>>Some of the defenses used by defendants in intentional tort cases include consent, self-defense, defense of others, defense of property, repossession of property, public necessity, private necessity, assumption of risk, truth, comparative negligence or justification.<<

>> If a person uses reasonable force to defend themselves against another person, or defends their family or property (private necessity), this is also a defense against charges of intentional tort. <<

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Van

So from the information posted we know that we can have a substantial civil exposure in a law suit for an intentional act, regardless of the outcome in court.

We may be totally justified in 'acting intentionally' to wit: Self defense...and can use this as a defense at the civil trial...

But we run the risk that our liability insurance company may deny defense of the suit...and indemnity because they usually cover for negligent acts and not intentional acts...bearing in mind that here we are talking about the contractual language of an insurance policy pertaining to coverage for defense and possible monetary awards to a plaintiff...

And not about liability.

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Van

Then on the criminal end of it...

If you run the man down...kill him...or cause permanent injuries...paraplegic/quadruplegic et._

Even though you may be in the right...when the police responds and see a dead man...and hear you saying you had to run him down to escape injury or death...

They may well charge you with something pending the results of their investigation, preferring to let a judge decide on the facts.

What wil happen next is there will be a probable cause hearing before a clerk magistrate in the district court...



Funny things can happen at these hearings...I have attended quite a few of them in relation to my cases.

Among other things, the evidence will show the driver's statement ...'I had to run him down' ...

I have some stories to tell here.

I would not want this statement to 'rummage' through the mind of the clerk magistrate as he ponders a decision.

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Van

Very clear explanation. Thanks.

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Mike

FUBAR! Now I take that nice little orange hammer used for breaking windows (it has remained in my driver's side door pocket all year), and make contact with his head as many times as I can in a very short span, until he no longer remains a threat.



"I was afraid for my life officer, and it was the only way I could make him stop."

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Life begins & ends cold, naked & covered in crap.

It gets me wondering...if, as an instructor, you have the legal knowledge of torts, city and state law as they apply to self defense situations – do you teach them as part of your dojo curriculum? If you do, does that somehow taint the whole feeling of the gym, or of that class in patricular? If you don't, why not?

I showed my wife that video. She's been training as long as me, but is inherently evil (Sicilian/Irish Tomboy) She laughed and said, “yeah, right, like he'd live another minute.” She went on to say, “I'm a gal, I'd take advantge of that. I'd punch myself in the nose and rip my shirt. Then I'd cry as he died.”
I love my wife. But she scares me.

Good points Otto.

I always touch upon those subjects in class and students are grateful.

We should be teaching 'self preservation' not self defense to our students.

There are many components to 'self preservation' _ the violence in our trained response action being only one component of the overall exposure to adversarial 'jaws'…

Teachers who do not familiarize themselves with these concepts in these modern times, while teaching ' defensive violence' , as much as trying to disguise it as 'art' …can get their students in a bunch of trouble in a myriad of ways…and some of them already have.

For the 'gun people' i.e., c.c.w. permit holders…this knowledge is even more critical and they would do well to take specialized instruction or at least read Mas Ayoob's book 'In the Gravest Extreme' ….

Obviously there is a time and a place where deadly violence for self preservation is totally justified.

But, as in the case of the madman in the video, in such situations he is not the only 'enemy' you will be confronting…

What comes next may be even more dangerous to the overall state of preservation of the self.

By all means use the 'violence' you need to survive…but know the 'escape mechanisms' well.

Your wife seems to know the 'score' ….

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Van

Jason, all good points.

Pepper spray accidental discharges are quite common because people do not give it the same respect as firearms and are very careless in handling and storage.

What comes out of people's mouths after a mind numbing event can be comical at times...and no one is immune as much as they think they might be.

Consider this case of mine:

A professional Greyhound bus driver at the end of his shift is driving his empty bus to the storage terminal in south Boston proceeding at 25 miles an hour on secondary streets.

At 25 feet from an intersection he sees the front end of a pick up truck emerging from a side street on his right without stopping at a stop sign.

The bus broadsides the pick up killing its driver.

The police investigators interrogate him at the scene…he tells them " as soon as I saw the pickup about to cross in front of me…I unbuckled my seat belt…got up from the seat and ran towards the back of the bus…I was halfway there when my bus hit the pickup."

Well…the police charged him with negligent vehicular homicide. Imagine that.

This statement was in the police report.

When I interviewed the bus driver, I showed him the police report, and he denied having said that…but could not recall what he had stated to the police immediately after the accident.

There was a probable cause hearing following the criminal charges. Think of what we had to do to prepare his defense and the outcome of the hearing.

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Van

I hope he was not charged as very unlikely he could perform those task in time before hitting the truck. A vehicle travelling 25 mph covers 25 feet very quickly. Having been first on the scene at an accident and hearing statements made that seem unusual. And also experiencing giving a statement (I have no memory of what I said) while laying on the road after being run over, I can not believe that police expect an accurate statement...

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Léo

Hi Leo,

I remember your horrible accident and your miraculous recovery, Thank God.

The bus driver 'was' charged by the investigating police officers because of a death at the scene. Usually in every deadly accident or 'deadly force' events, a through investigation is performed by the police pending any possible charges.

In this case, the police made a gross blunder in charging the bus driver with vehicular homicide without completing their investigation and using common sense.

But this is precisely the point. If anything happens we are at the mercy of responding police, who are themselves under a burden to make the right decision as to charges. You say anything that looks suspicious or out of place and the police will charge you and bind over the responsibility of a decision to a clerk magistrate.

Now imagine you in the place of the bus driver getting charged with negligent homicide.

Your liability insurance company will not pay for your retaining a criminal lawyer and the hiring of experts for investigations and forensics for the criminal defense.

And even if you survive the 'probable cause' hearing…think of how much money you are already in the red.

You need to do what is necessary to survive without hesitation …but you need to do it 'smart' by learning before hand the various pitfalls of your actions …during and after an event.

You must realize that after a shocking event…in spite of your best intentions…you will be seized by 'logorrhea' …to use an 'Ayoobism'…diarrhea of the mouth _as it blabs faster than your confused brain.

The road to 'perdition' then looms before you…and after…you will kick your ass for not having embedded the right training…physical and mental…arguing that assimilating concerns of criminal and civil liability in defensive actions…is detrimental to your immediate response action.

As Mas Ayoob puts it in his training on lethal force…the knowing of the 'right stuff' to do under stress actually removes any doubt or hesitation and makes you respond quicker saving your body, your mind and your pockets from an unpleasant 'lashing' ….

Now in the case of the bus driver…he was lucky because the employer paid for all expenses related to his criminal defense, including a costly expert on distances/reaction times…as you pointed out.

At the hearing the clerk magistrate reviewed all the presented evidence in detail, dismissed the case and chided the police for having charged the driver to begin with…i.e., they should have known better.

So you see where the proverbial 'jaws of hell' can emerge in any situation.

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Van

So in the video we see...by all means run the man down if the only way to get away from possible grievous harm by the maniac...

but you tell the police you were only trying to get the hell out of there and he got in the way...it was an accident...

"I had to run the man down" are not words in your vocabulary or they'll come up during 'logorrhea'

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Van

Let everyone only hear the most civilized and kindest part of us...especially after we do what we must do to survive. I have learned from this thread and hope to expand more on it later.



Half hard...half soft

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Léo