Court Opinion

ID: 9462354
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:39:18.323181+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:33.534462
License: Public Domain

OAKES, Circuit Judge
(concurring):
Were we writing on a clean slate, a good argument could be made for the proposition that the “battery” exclusion in 28 U.S.C. § 2680(h) was intended to apply only to cases where bodily harm was intended and not to cases involving a “technical battery.” See Lane v. United States, 225 F.Supp. 850, 852 (E.D.Va.1964) (surgeon’s operating on wrong knee held actionable though a “ ‘technical’ assault and battery”). See also Hulver v. United States, 393 F.Supp. 749 (W.D.Mo.1975); W. Prosser, Law of Torts § 131, at 972-73 & n.27 (4th ed. 1971). The legislative history of the Federal Tort Claims Act is most unclear and we are not bound by any so-called rule of “strict” or “liberal” construction. See Panella v. United States, 216 F.2d 622, 624 (2d Cir. 1954).
But the weight of authority in our own court as elsewhere is, as Judge Van Graafeiland’s opinion suggests, to the effect that the exclusions in § 2680(h) of the so-called “intentional torts” are to be read in their usual, legalistic sense which in the case of “battery” quite clearly contemplates an “intention of inflicting upon another an offensive but not a harmful bodily contact. . . . ” Restatement (Second) of Torts § 16(1) (1965). Our own Klein v. United States, 268 F.2d 63 (2d Cir. 1959) (per curiam) (false arrest not actionable though plaintiff negligently exposed to the elements in course thereof), impels me to the narrow view of governmental liability taken in Judge Van Graafeiland’s opinion. Accordingly I concur.