Ruth Garratt was injured when she fell while attempting to sit in a lawn chair in her backyard. Brian Dailey, a child age five years and nine months, had moved the chair. The trial court rejected the plaintiff’s theory that Brian deliberately pulled the chair out from under her as she sat, and instead found that Brian had moved the chair earlier, then tried unsuccessfully to place it back under her when he saw her about to sit. The trial court also found that Brian had no purpose to injure, prank, or offensively contact the plaintiff, and dismissed the action, though it fixed damages at $11,000 if liability were found.
Can a young child be liable for battery if he moved a chair and knew with substantial certainty that the plaintiff would attempt to sit where the chair had been, even if he had no purpose to injure her?
Battery requires an intentional act causing harmful or offensive contact. Intent exists not only when the actor acts for the purpose of causing the contact, but also when the actor knows with substantial certainty that such contact will result; a child is held to this same intent standard, though age bears on what the child actually knew.
Yes. A minor may be liable for battery if he acted with the requisite intent, and that intent can be established by knowledge with substantial certainty that the plaintiff would attempt to sit where the chair had been. The case was remanded for specific findings on whether Brian had that knowledge.
The court adopted the Restatement rule that battery turns on intent to cause harmful or offensive contact, and that intent includes substantial-certainty knowledge, not merely a desire to injure. The trial court’s findings that Brian lacked a willful purpose, prank motive, or intent to injure did not resolve the decisive question whether he knew Ruth was about to sit where the chair had been. If he had such knowledge, the law would infer the necessary intent for battery even without malicious motive; if he lacked such knowledge, there would be no wrongful act supporting liability. Because the findings were ambiguous on that point, remand for clarification rather than outright judgment or a new trial was required.
Garratt is a foundational intentional torts case for the proposition that battery intent may be satisfied by knowledge with substantial certainty, not just by a desire to cause harm. It is also important for showing that children can be liable for intentional torts under the ordinary battery standard, with age relevant only to whether the child actually possessed the required knowledge. The case is often taught alongside Vosburg v. Putney, 80 Wis. 523, 50 N.W. 403 (1891), on intent and liability for unexpected injury from intentional contact, and is consistent with the Restatement approach to battery intent.
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