2. The defendants played a practical joke to the
claimant, he told her that her husband had been
seriously injured in an accident and that he lay in a
ditch with broken bones. The claimant suffered
serious psychiatric harm. The defendant could not
be liable in trespass as there was no direct
interference with the person.
The tort as per the judge was ; where the defendant
has willfully committed and act or made a
statement that is calculated to cause physical
harm(including psychiatric harm) to the claimant
and has ipso facto caused physical harm to the
claimant, there being no justification for the act.
3. The defendants behavior: must entail
threats or false statements.
Type of harm: must be physical harm or
recognized psychiatric illness and not
merely distress inconvenience &
discomfort.
4. Mental element: there are 3 states of mind that
lead to liability;
1st – where the acts were calculated to cause
psychiatric harm & were done with the
knowledge that such harm was likely
2nd- where psychiatric harm was so likely to
result from the defendants acts that the
defendant could not reasonably claim that they
did not mean to cause the harm
3rd- Where the defendant was reckless as to
whether psychiatric harm would result from
their acts
5. The defendant threatened the claimant that if
she does not steal a certain letter from her
employer, they would alert the authorities
that her husband was a spy( which he was
not but the political atmosphere of this area
at this particular time made it highly
dangerous even or one to be suspected of
being a spy) As a result she suffered serious
nervous illness, on suing the Court of Appeal
held that the defendant was liable for the tort
in wilkinson v downtown.
