Opinion ID: 76792
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Sexual Assault Verdict

Text: 130 As stated above, the district court determined that the defendants were liable for Jane Doe's injuries if Aydin committed either a sexual assault or a sexual battery. Also, as outlined above, the jury concluded that Aydin committed a sexual battery, but not a sexual assault, on Doe. 131 To the extent the defendants argue that there is some conflict between the jury's verdicts, we conclude that no conflict existed between a finding that, as instructed, Aydin committed a sexual battery, but not a sexual assault. 132 As described earlier, the district court instructed the jury that the defendants were strictly liable if Doe proved sexual battery as follows: Sexual Battery 133 On Plaintiff's claim for sexual battery, Defendants ... are strictly liable to Plaintiff for sexual battery if Plaintiff shows, by the greater weight of the evidence, the following: 134 That Baris Aydin, with his sexual organ, penetrated or had union with the vagina of Plaintiff; and 135 That act was done without the consent of Plaintiff. 136 (emphasis added). Therefore, to prove sexual battery, Doe had to prove only that Aydin had sexual intercourse with her (a fact that was not in dispute) and that she did not consent to the sexual intercourse; that is, if Doe did not consent to the sexual intercourse, Aydin was guilty of sexual battery. See Fla. Stat. ch. 794.011(1)(h) & (5). 137 In contrast, as to the sexual assault, the district court instructed the jury as follows: Sexual Assault 138 On Plaintiff's claim for sexual assault, Defendants ... are strictly liable for sexual assault if Plaintiff shows, by the greater weight of the evidence, either: 139 a) That Baris Aydin intended to commit a sexual battery on the person of Plaintiff; and that the attempted act was done without the consent of Plaintiff; or 140 b) That Baris Aydin intended to cause Plaintiff to fear an immediate sexual battery or rape; and that the attempted act was done without the consent of Plaintiff. 141 (emphasis added). Thus, as charged, a jury would have to conclude that Aydin: (1) intended to commit a sexual battery and that the attempted act was done without Doe's consent; or (2) intended to cause Doe to fear an immediate sexual battery or rape and that the attempted act was done without Doe's consent. We readily conclude that the sexual battery and sexual assault charges, and the jury's verdict as to these charges, are in no way inconsistent. 142 First, a jury could reasonably have concluded that sexual assault charges were inapplicable because it was undisputed that Aydin had sexual intercourse with Doe, and, therefore, there was no attempted act, only the completed act of sexual intercourse. 31 Furthermore, the jury could have viewed the attempted act language as necessarily related to the intended acts immediately preceding in the charge; that is, Aydin was not guilty of sexual assault because he did not attempt to: (1) commit a sexual battery (he in fact did commit a sexual battery); or (2) cause Doe to fear a sexual battery or rape. 143 Furthermore, the jury charges for sexual battery and sexual assault contain a simple, obvious difference, and, therefore, are not inconsistent. The sexual battery charge does not require that Aydin intended to engage in criminal conduct, whereas the sexual assault charge requires that Aydin have the specific intent to engage in criminal conduct. 144 The defendants seize on this last difference and argue that because sexual battery does not have, as an element, any specific intent to engage in criminal conduct it should not be considered an intentional tort. Therefore, according to the defendants' argument, strict liability is only for intentional torts and thus they should not be held strictly liable for Aydin's actions. The defendants' argument is flawed for several reasons. 145 First, the district court's sexual battery charge was consistent with Florida's criminal statute defining sexual battery and Florida Pattern Jury Instruction 11.4, in that it required a showing of only (1) sexual penetration and (2) a lack of consent. 32 Furthermore, under Florida law, sexual battery is a general intent crime and does not require that a defendant act with specific intent. See Coler v. State, 418 So.2d 238, 239 (Fla.1982) (State of mind is not a material fact in a sexual battery charge, nor is intent an issue.); Killian v. State, 730 So.2d 360, 362 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1999); Jackson v. State, 640 So.2d 1173, 1174 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1994); see also Askew v. State, 118 So.2d 219, 222 (Fla.1960). Although the defendants correctly point out that specific intent is not required under sexual battery, the defendants incorrectly conclude that this means that sexual battery is not an intentional tort. 146 Florida law equates sexual battery with an intentional tort. See Doe v. Young, 656 So.2d 569, 570 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1995) (describing plaintiffs' claims as the intentional torts of battery and sexual battery); see also Doe v. Evans, 814 So.2d 370, 380 (Fla.2002) (Wells, C.J., dissenting) (Importantly, there are no allegations that the alleged conduct resulted in any physical injury or that an intentional tort such as sexual battery occurred.); Scott v. Otis Elevator Co., 572 So.2d 902, 903 (Fla.1990) (This conclusion is supported by the definition of the intent necessary to establish an intentional tort. The intent with which tort liability is concerned is an intent to bring about a result which will invade the interests of another in a way that the law forbids.) (internal punctuation and citation omitted). Furthermore, an intentional tort is [a] tort committed by someone acting with general or specific intent [and] [e]xamples include battery, false imprisonment, and trespass to land. Black's Law Dictionary at 1527 (8th Ed. 1999). 147 Second, the defendant draws the wrong distinction. The distinction is not between those torts that have some overt requirement of specific intent and those torts that do not. Rather, the proper distinction is between intentional torts and those torts based on negligence. See City of Miami v. Sanders, 672 So.2d 46, 47 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1996) (An assault and battery is not negligence for such action is intentional, while negligence connotes an unintentional act.) (quotation marks omitted); Slawson v. Fast Food Enters., 671 So.2d 255, 258 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1996) ([T]he kind of harm sought to be avoided was an intentional assault, the oldest intentional tort.); see also St. John v. Coisman, 799 So.2d 1110, 1125 n. 5 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.2001) (Sawaya, J., concurring in part, dissenting in part) (Assault and battery are intentional torts as opposed to torts based on negligence.). For all the above reasons, it is clear that sexual battery is an intentional tort. 148 Finally, even assuming arguendo that sexual battery was not considered an intentional tort, the defendants' arguments still lack merit; that is, if a cruise ship can be held strictly liable for its crew members' intentional torts, a cruise ship can certainly be held strictly liable for other, lesser forms of crew member sexual assaults on passengers. We readily conclude that a sexual battery by a crew member is within that class of crew member assaults for which a ship, as a common carrier, is strictly liable to a passenger. 33