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Fact Summary

First, a brief summary of the facts: Brian Dailey was, at the time, a five year old visiting Naomi Garratt at Naomi’s sister Ruth’s house. Garratt contended that just as she was about to resume sitting in a lawn chair she had been sitting in, Dailey pulled it out from under her which caused her injury.

Now this seems like not that big a deal but for the fact that Garrett actually fractured her hip. To cover the costs associated with her injury,

Garrett sought $11,000 in damages. In 1955.

A lower court found in favor of Dailey and the Plaintiff appealed – giving us the opinion that we are reading today from the Washington Supreme Court.

Rule of Law

There is a heavy focus when it comes to the torts of Assault and Batter on the intentionality of the act. Did the defendant have the intention to inflict or otherwise cause bodily harm against the plaintiff? And basically the rule of law that the Court ended up with was this: a minor who has committed a tort with force is liable as any other would be. BUT a plaintiff must establish that the defendant committed the act with the intention of causing the harmful contact. Specifically in the case, a phrase that gets reused a lot is “knew with substantial certainty,” as in Dailey would had to have known with substantial certainty that his action of removing the chair could result in injury.

Issue

The question here is this: in an action for battery, what amounts to willful and unlawful intent?

Conclusion

Intent is apparent where a defendant possessed knowledge of substantial certainty that an injury would occur as a result of their actions.

The case was remanded to the lower courts to discover whether Dailey did know with substantial certainty that Garratt would attempt to sit in the lawn chair that had been moved.