Also known as: assault & battery · assault and/or battery · assault · battery
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
An intentional tort and common-law crime that joins an assault (unlawful attempt or threat to cause harmful or offensive contact) with a battery (actual resulting harmful or offensive contact).
Angela Acosta punched Alfred Ashford's brother during an argument at a family gathering. Alfred, seeing the blow, grabbed a nearby object and struck Angela fatally before any cooling period elapsed. The assault and battery on his close relative supplied adequate provocation that reduced the charge from murder to voluntary manslaughter.
Ava Adebayo snatched a plate from Anika Anand's hands at a professional luncheon and shouted that she could not be served. The assault and battery was intended to be offensive and caused Anika immediate embarrassment and distress. Anika has an assault-and-battery claim because the harmful contact resulted directly from the intended act.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Aaron Adams faced trial for committing an assault and battery on a coworker. The prosecution offered testimony that Adams had committed a similar assault and battery on another employee two years earlier. The court admitted the evidence to show propensity and relevance to the charged conduct.
Alice Atkins insulted Aaron Adams about a business deal that had collapsed months earlier. Aaron later committed an assault and battery on Alice during a new argument. The earlier insults constituted mere words from the distant past and supplied no adequate provocation to reduce the resulting charge.
Aether Technologies employee Alfred Ashford yanked a chair away from Ava Adebayo as she sat down. The resulting fall fractured her hip. Liability for assault and battery attached because the harmful contact was caused by Alfred's own intentional act.
Aurora Biotech sued Apollo Energy after an employee allegedly committed an assault and battery during a joint project. The plaintiff offered evidence that the same employee had committed a prior assault and battery in another workplace. The court admitted the evidence on any relevant issue in the civil action.
Yes. When harmful or offensive contact actually occurs, the assault blends into the battery and only the battery is punishable.
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The actor must intend to cause a harmful or offensive contact or an imminent apprehension of such contact, and the contact must result.
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Yes. At common law a serious battery on the defendant or a close relative qualifies as adequate provocation that can reduce murder to voluntary manslaughter if the other elements are met.
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No. Mere words, trivial battery, and provocation based on distant wrongs are legally inadequate and do not reduce murder to voluntary manslaughter.
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Yes. The harmful bodily contact must be caused by an act done by the person whose liability is in question.
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…with his arrest for loitering outside a courtroom, one of the officers who made the arrest denied that there was such an assault. On the premise that the charges in the sixth paragraph could be read as referring to him, respondent was allowed to prove that he had not participated in the events described. Although…