Intentional Tort In Court Case Summary

Love hired an attorney, Holmes to present her. Holmes agreed on condition that Love would refrain herself from abusing controlled substance. Holmes then ended the professional relationship a few months later. Love then alleged that Holmes was bought off on her twitter. The issue is whether Love is liable to her attorney.

This case involves the concept of tort which means a wrong. There are three types of torts: intentional torts, unintentional torts (negligence) and strict liability. Intentional tort is a category of torts that require the defendant possessed intention to do the act the cause the plaintiff’s injury. Unintentional tort is a doctrine that says a person is liable for harm that is foreseeable consequences of his or her action, and strict liability means liability without fault. The injuries from torts include assault, battery, false imprisonment, misappropriation of the right to publicity,

invasion to the right of the privacy, defamation of character, disparagement, intentional misrepresentation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and malicious prosecution. In most cases burden of proof falls on the plaintiffs except for when an negligence involving the defend being in sole control of the situation and the plaintiff would not have suffered from the injury if not for the action of defendant(res ipsa loquitur). Defamation of character refers to false statements made by one person about another. The plaintiff must prove that the defendant made the untrue statement of fact about the plaintiff and the statement was intentionally or accidentally published to a third party. Publication here means that a third person hear or saw the untrue statement. If the statement appears in a letter, newspaper, magazine, book, photograph, movie, video, it is classified as libel and an oral defamation of a character is called slander.

In this case, Love posted a statement on internet via twitter stating that her lawyer Holmes was “bought off” and called out a news agency to quote her statement.

Homes was angry and concerned by this action. An intentional tort was made if Holmes wasn’t bought off and Love accused her of being bought out. The statement was defamation for Holmes if she could prove that the statement was wrong. Love published her statement on a third-party social media website and informed a news agency. This could be a libel defamation. She showed intention to harm the professional reputation of Holmes in doing so. Holme, as the plaintiff, bore the burden of proof. She need to provide evidence in court that she wasn't bought off. She could provide evidence that would prove the statement was wrong such as the reason behind the severed professional relation ship was Love behaving erratically in public again or that she had no connection to the alleged party who tried to buy her off. She could also use the tweet as evidence to show that the statement was known to third

party.

Thus, if Holmes could prove that the statement is false by providing relevant evidence and she wasn’t bought off, Love is liable to her attorney.