Small Claims Court

Assault is the tort of acting intentionally, that is with either general or specific intent, causing the reasonable apprehension of an immediate harmful or offensive contact.

The tort of battery contains 4 components: the act, intended to cause contact with the victim, contact with the victim is harmful or offensive and contact causes the victim to suffer a contact that is harmful or offensive.

Defense:

• Self-Defense: You are justified in using reasonable force to defend yourself against an unlawful assault, provided you did not intend to cause death or grievous bodily harm.
• Accident: Has to be something that happened unexpectedly, outside of the usual course of things, and any harm or loss flowing from the accident had to be unintended and unexpected.
• Defense of Property: Defending property against being invaded or illegally withheld.

The tort trespass to land has been held to occur whenever there has been an unauthorized physical intrusion onto the private property of another or when a person remains on an individual’s land after permission has been withdrawn. The only intention required is that there was an intent to enter on the land.

Defense:

• Consent: The defendant can argue that the owner gave them permission to enter the land.
• Unintentional and non-negligent entry: They were unaware that they were on someone property, they thought they were still on public land.
• Necessity: Trespass to land is caused by an action that was strictly necessary to revent public disaster

All three relate to wrongful interference with a chattel however, the distinguishing nuance with trespass to chattels is that the object remains in possession or control of the owner which differs from conversion and detinue where the owner or person with rightful possession is deprived of possession.

Trespass to chattels, conversion and detinue. To establish either conversion, detinue or trespass to chattels, it is necessary for the Plaintiff to prove that it had possession, or an immediate right of possession, at the relevant time.

The essential features of the tort of conversion are:

• A wrongful act;
• Involving a chattel;
• Consisting of handling, disposing or destruction of the chattel;
• With the intention or effect of denying or negating the title of another person to such chattel.

The elements of the tort of detinue to be:

• Goods owned by the plaintiff;
• In the possession or control of the defendant;
• Where the plaintiff demands the return of the goods; and
• The Defendant wrongfully or unlawfully refuses to return the goods.

Trespass to chattels involve the following elements:

• The Plaintiff owns or has the right to possess the personal property at issue;
• The Tortfeasor intentionally interfered with the plaintiff’s property;
• the Tortfeasor deprived the plaintiff of possession or use of the property at issue; and (4) the interference caused damages to the plaintiff.

Defense:

Conversion

• Abandonment of the property
• Authority of Law: This refers to when a person operates under authority of law (such as a law enforcement officer) or by court order.
• Consent
• Lack of value: Some states will not allow a claim of conversion if the property has little to no monetary value.
• Privilege: In Some circumstances, a person may be considered privileged to commit an act that would be considered conversion. An example is if the action was necessary to protect the person’s own property or to avoid physical harm.

Detinue

• Consent: It is a defense to show that there can be no trespass if the interference occurs with the plaintiff’s consent.
• No right to possession
• The demand was invalid: If a demand has been made, it may be vague, confusing or otherwise invalid.
• There was no refusal: If the refusal to return something is not specific, and a sufficient amount of time has not passed to imply that there is a refusal, then the element of refusing the demand to return the chattel may not be met.
• It wasn’t reasonable to return the chattel: There may be a reasonable excuse why the chattel had not been returned in time.

Trespass to chattel

• Consent
• Public Necessity: This defense can be used if you intentionally interfere with another person’s chattel to protect the public.
• Private Necessity: This defense can be used when the purpose of using another person’s chattel is to protect your own interests. Private necessity can only be claimed if you were attempting to protect yourself from death or serious bodily harm.
• Privileged Invasion to Reclaim Personal Property: If you take personal property because it is actually your own property, you can argue privilege as a defense. In order for this defense to be successful, the defendant must have taken your property or it must be in the defendant’s possession because of an act of god, such as a storm or flood.

False Imprisonment is a tort resulting from the intentional and total confinement of a person against his or her will and without lawful justification and the following elements must be present:

• The person must have been totally deprived of liberty;
• The deprivation must have been against the person’s will; and
• The deprivation must have been caused by the defendant.

Defense:

• Voluntary Consent: A Person consents to confinement, without duress, coercion, or fraud.
• Police Privilege: Police officers have the right to detain someone they have probable cause to believe has engaged in wrongdoing, or when they believe a crime has been committed.
• Citizen’s Arrest: In some instances, a person who is not a law enforcement official can make a “citizen’s arrest” by calling for a peace officer when a crime is committed or attempted in their presence, although this defense is not meant to give citizens the right to take the place of law enforcement.

There are four necessary elements which must be proven for a plaintiff to succeed in an action for malicious prosecution:

• The proceedings must have been initiated by the defendant;
• The proceedings must have terminated in favor of the plaintiff;
• The absence of reasonable and probable cause;
• Malice, or a primary purpose other than that of carrying the law into effect.

Defense:

• Privilege: Only judges, prosecutors and other law enforcement officials have an absolute privilege from liability.

To obtain judgment for the tort of defamation, the plaintiff must prove, on a balance of probabilities, that:

• The impugned words were defamatory, in the sense that they would tend to lower the plaintiff’s reputation in the eyes of a reasonable person;
• The words in fact refer to the plaintiff; and
• The words were published, meaning that they were communicated to at least one other person.

Defense:

• Truth (justification): This defense alleges that the defamatory expression is true in substance and in fact.
• Fair comment (Honest comment on true facts)
• Qualified privilege: At common law, there are privileged occasions when the public interest in free and candid speech trumps the public and private interest in protecting individual or corporate reputation.
• Absolute Privilege: The common law defense of absolute privilege provides complete immunity for defamatory expression in certain circumstances, such as testimony during a judicial or quasi-judicial proceeding or statements in Parliament or a provincial legislature, even if the statements were published with actual malice.
• Responsible communication on matters of public interest.

• The Tort of intimidation is established when
• Uses violence or threats of violence to that person or their intimate partner or children, or injures the person’s property;
• Intimidates or attempts to intimidate that person or a relative of that person by threats that, in Canada or elsewhere, violence or other injury will be done to or punishment inflicted on him or her or a relative of his or hers, or that the property of any of them will be damaged;
• Persistently follows that person;
• Hides any tools, clothes or other property owned or used by that person, or deprives him or her of them or hinders him or her in the use of them;
• With one or more other persons, follows that person, in a disorderly manner, on a highway;
• Besets or watches the place where that person resides, works, carries on business or happens to be; or
• Blocks or obstructs a highway.

Defense:

• Self defense
• No Intent to Promote a State of Fear
• Factual innocence

To claim breach of contract, one of the parties must demonstrate that the other failed to perform a contractual obligation.

Party must prove:

• There is a contract between them:
  • Offer,
  • Acceptance,
  • Consideration and
  • Intention,
• They breached a term of the contract,
• The party’s breach was substantial enough to discharge or relieve the other from further performance of the contract, and
• They suffered damages.

• Defense: No consideration: In order for a promise or any other contractual obligation to be enforceable by courts, there must be consideration. Consideration is what is given in exchange for a promise that makes the promise binding. If there is no consideration for a promise, the promise will not be enforced by the courts, even if the parties have an otherwise valid contract.
• Void contract: A contract can be void and therefore unenforceable for several reasons, including lack of mental capacity, uncertainty of terms, illegality.
• Unconscionability: A contract is said to be unconscionable and therefore unenforceable where the circumstances surrounding the creation of the contract gave rise to a grave inequality in bargaining power between parties. This is a complicated area of contract law, and legal advice should be sought.
• Misrepresentation: If the other party made a statement to you before the contract came into existence that you relied on on entering the contract and that turned out to be false, you may be able to have the contract set aside.
• Frustration: Frustration occurs when an unforeseen event renders contractual obligations impossible or radically changes the primary purpose of the contract.Frustration is also another complicated area in contract law. Legal advice should be sought.
• Undue Influence: If one of the parties to a contract was unduly influenced by someone else (either the other party of the contract or a third party), the contract can be set aside on the grounds that the unduly influenced party had their consent vitiated due to an inability to exercise their independent will. This is a complicated area of contract law, and legal advice should be sought.

Conspiracy can be proven when two or more people acted in concert, by agreement, or with a common design or intention; the co-conspirators engaged in conduct that was unlawful, which can include the breach of a statute, the violation of a contract, or the carrying out of an underlying tort, such as misrepresentation or fraud; the conduct was directed towards the plaintiff; given the circumstances, the defendants should have known that injury was likely to result; and injury or harm did result.

Defense:

Conspiracy agreement never existed

Withdraw your participation in the conspiracy: If you can prove that you backed out of the crime before it was committed or before it was intended to be committed.

You Believed You Were Acting Legally: If you can prove that you honestly believed your actions to be legal.

You or Your Co-Conspirator Did Not Commit an Act Furthering the Crime: Committing the crime must occur in order for someone to be accused of conspiracy.