Torts - Cases, Principles, and Institutions Fifth Edition, 2016a

Witt & Tani, TCPI 1. Introduction
As for what kind of contact is “in fact, forbidden,” the Wagner court offered the following
guidance:
A harmful or offensive contact is simply one to which the recipient of the contact
has not consented either directly or by implication. Prosser [and Keeton on the
Law of Torts], supra, § 9, at 41–42. Under this definition, harmful or offensive
contact is not limited to that which is medically injurious or perpetrated with the
intent to cause some form of psychological or physical injury. Instead, it includes
all physical contacts that the individual either expressly communicates are
unwanted, or those contacts to which no reasonable person would consent.
What is not included in this definition are the uncommunicated idiosyncratic
preferences of individuals not to be touched in ways considered normal and
customary in our culture. Instead, the law assumes consent to contacts “according
to the usages of decent society,” and unless an individual expressly states that he
does not want to shake hands, for example, someone who shakes his hand against
his silent wishes has not committed a harmful or offensive contact. Id. § 9, at 42.
As Prosser notes in his analysis on the subject, “in a crowded world, a certain
amount of personal contact is inevitable, and must be accepted. Absent expression
to the contrary, consent is assumed to all those ordinary contacts which are
customary and reasonably necessary to the common intercourse of life.” Id.
Among the contacts Prosser noted as part of this common intercourse were: “a tap
on the shoulder,” “a friendly grasp of the arm,” and “a casual jostling to make a
passage.” Id. Thus, the tort of battery seeks to strike a balance between preserving
the bodily integrity of others and recognizing and accommodating the realities of
our physical world.
Because the law defines “harmful and offensive” with reference to the mores of
polite society, and protects against invasions of bodily integrity perpetrated outside
those bounds, whether consent is assumed also depends upon who is making the
contact. For example, it seems clear that “the usages of a decent society” and
“polite manners” are in nowise offended when a baby reaches out to perform the
non-medically injurious act of stroking the hair of a nearby stranger. Such
encounters with babies are “customary ... in the course of life.” Id. § 9, at 42.
Thus, we can include this type of contact from babies in the category of contacts
for which we are assumed to have consented. A grown man, on the other hand,
perpetrating the same act for equally complimentary reasons, would not enjoy the
same privilege, for his behavior would not be considered by reasonable people to
be a customary contact in decent society to which members consent.
Id. at 609. How does this discussion of harmfulness and offensiveness square with the court’s
opinion in Vosburg? Does it capture Judge Lyon’s sense of what is “unlawful”?
Note that not all jurisdictions agree with the Wagner court’s holding on the nature of the
intent requirement for battery. Some tolerate a body of case law that, when examined closely, is
ambiguous and inconsistent. And some go the other way, affirmatively embracing the “dual
intent” formulation that the Wagner court rejected. See, e.g., White v. University of Idaho, 595
26