Talk:Assault (tort)

Harmful or offensive contact

Would I be correct in thinking that this part of the definition in this article is taken from the Restatement of Torts (i.e. harmful or offensive to personal dignity, if I remember correctly). In England and Wales, I think that a definition would normally be given in terms of 'unlawful force' (where force is the same as touching or contact).James500 (talk) 01:37, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Strike that. Having read the third paragraph, the editors are definately basing this on the Restatement.James500 (talk) 01:42, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Might be useful that we note in the article that at common law, traditionally an assault was an apprehension of an immediate battery, not an immediate harmful or offensive contact as defined in the Restatement. The distinction does actually matter in some fact patterns. Also, we should expand the article to discuss the 'mere words' issue Jackk (talk) 21:37, 25 April 2009 (UTC)