Quincy KiptooL.L.B candidate 2017

Riara Law Schoolhttp://quincykiptooslawsolutions.blogspot.com.

Tort in Wilkinson V Downton

The defendants played a practical joke to the claimant, he told her that her husband had been seriously injured in an accident and that he lay in a ditch with broken bones. The claimant suffered serious psychiatric harm. The defendant could not be liable in trespass as there was no direct interference with the person.

The tort as per the judge was ; where the defendant has willfully committed and act or made a statement that is calculated to cause physical harm(including psychiatric harm) to the claimant and has ipso facto caused physical harm to the claimant, there being no justification for the act.

Facts

The defendants behavior: must entail threats or false statements.

Type of harm: must be physical harm or recognized psychiatric illness and not merely distress inconvenience & discomfort.

Elements of the tort

Mental element: there are 3 states of mind that lead to liability;

1st – where the acts were calculated to cause psychiatric harm & were done with the knowledge that such harm was likely

2nd- where psychiatric harm was so likely to result from the defendants acts that the defendant could not reasonably claim that they did not mean to cause the harm

3rd- Where the defendant was reckless as to whether psychiatric harm would result from their acts

Elements contd

The defendant threatened the claimant that if she does not steal a certain letter from her employer, they would alert the authorities that her husband was a spy( which he was not but the political atmosphere of this area at this particular time made it highly dangerous even or one to be suspected of being a spy) As a result she suffered serious nervous illness, on suing the Court of Appeal held that the defendant was liable for the tort in wilkinson v downtown.

In Janvier v Sweeney;