What You'll Learn

  • The two paths to intent 4. Transferred intent
  • Intent versus motive and negligence 5. The exam checklist
  • Mistake and incapacity

Educational information only; not legal advice. This article is a general study aid and should be checked against current authority and course materials.

1. Two Independent Paths to Intent

Purpose

The actor acts with the conscious objective of producing the relevant consequence.

Substantial certainty

The actor may not desire the result but knows it is substantially certain to follow.

The substantial-certainty route is not ordinary risk awareness. A person who recognizes a possibility of harm may be negligent or reckless. Intent requires knowledge approaching certainty as to the consequence that defines the tort.

Key Takeaway

A child who moved a chair could possess intent if he knew with substantial certainty that the plaintiff would attempt to sit and would make harmful contact with the ground. The age of the actor did not eliminate the need to decide what he knew.

2. Intent Is Not the Same as Motive

Motive explains why the defendant acted. A good motive does not erase intent. Intent concerns whether the defendant meant the legally relevant consequence. Negligence concerns unreasonable risk creation, not a desired or substantially certain consequence. Recklessness involves conscious disregard of a substantial risk, but the result may remain short of substantial certainty.

3. Mistake and Mental Incapacity

A mistake about the plaintiff, the property, or legal entitlement ordinarily does not negate intent when the defendant deliberately performed the act. The defendant who intentionally shoots a dog while honestly believing it is a wolf still intended the contact with the animal.

Issue Effect on intent

Mistake of identity or ownership Usually no defense when the physical act and immediate consequence were intended.

Intoxication Does not automatically negate intent if the required purpose or knowledge is proven.

Mental disability A mentally disabled actor may be liable if the plaintiff proves the actor formed the intent required by the tort.

Minority A child may form intent; the factfinder examines purpose or substantial certainty.

Key Takeaway

Insanity did not create a categorical exemption from intentional tort liability. The central question remained whether the actor intended the harmful act.

4. Transferred Intent

Transferred intent applies when the defendant intends one of the traditional force-based intentional torts but the act affects a different person or produces another covered tort. The intent follows the act to the actual victim or result.

Intended event Actual event Result

Battery against A The object strikes B Intent transfers to the battery of B.

Assault against A The act causes harmful contact with A The intended assault can satisfy the intent for battery.

Trespass against one parcel The actor enters another parcel Mistaken location does not defeat the intended entry.

Key Takeaway

The defendant threw a stick toward one boy but struck another. The intent to use force against the intended target transferred to the person actually injured.

5. The Intent Checklist

1 Identify the consequence that defines the tort: contact, apprehension, confinement, entry, or interference. 2 Ask whether the defendant desired that consequence or knew it was substantially certain. 3 Separate intent from motive, foreseeability, recklessness, and negligence. 4 Test mistake, minority, intoxication, and mental disability without treating them as automatic defenses. 5 Ask whether transferred intent connects the intended tort or target to the actual result.

Primary Authorities

  • Restatement (Second) of Torts Sec. 8A (purpose or substantial certainty).

  • Garratt v. Dailey (substantial certainty).

  • Talmage v. Smith (transferred intent).

  • Ranson v. Kitner and McGuire v. Almy (mistake and mental incapacity).

Exam-ready conclusion

Intent is consequence-specific. The plaintiff need not always prove a desire to injure; purpose to make contact or substantial certainty that contact will occur may be enough.