How important is it to use a professor's wording on exams? Forum

[Anomaly]

I'm asking because my torts professor posted a power point slide with restatement definitions of battery, assault etc. The slide says:

battery
1- act
2- intent to cause harmful or offensive contact to a person or the person of another or a third person or imminent apprehension of such contact
3- which causes (directly or indirectly)
4- harmful or offensive contact

I guess this is somewhat helpful for understanding the elements, but who the heck writes that on an exam? Do you think it's cool to just write: "Bob may sue Joe for battery. Battery occurs when a defendant's 1) acts 2) intentionally 3) cause 4) harmful or offensive contact. Here, when Joe voluntarily swung the bat, that was an act."

Help me get an A in torts please.

[kalvano]

Fact pattern:

Joe got mad at Bob and got a bat and swung it and hit Bob in the head and reduced him to a Rick Perry-like level of intelligence. Bob's legal guardian sued Joe for battery.

Answer:

Battery is an intentional tort comprised of 4 elements...1) an act, 2) with intent to cause a harmful or offensive touching, 3) which does cause, 4) a harmful or offensive touching. In the given facts, Joe satisfied all the elements of the tort of battery. He committed an act by swinging the bat at Bob. There was intent to cause a harmful touching, which is evidenced by the fact that Joe was mad at Bob when he swing the bat at him. It's reasonable to assume that since Joe was mad at Bob, he intended to cause a harmful touching with the bat upside Bob's head. Since Bob now requires a liquid diet and drools when he talks, Joe satisfied the 3rd and 4th elements, actually causing the offensive touching.

Joe will probably claim as a defense...blah, blah, blah.





Torts is the easiest exam because you can break everything down and run over it really quickly.

[NeighborGuy]

Why is using his wording so hard? It can't hurt, and it may make all the difference.

[shock259]

Pre-write the BLL using his wording. Look for battery issue. Copy the BLL into exam. Analyze. Conclude. Profit