⇒ An action on the case exists for the intentional causation of harm without just cause or excuse, where harm arises that is not too remote

⇒ See, for example, Wilkinson v Downton [1897]

⇒ This tort requires that harm has been caused (unlike an assault or a battery). This can include:

• Physical injury (e.g. Bird v Holbrook), or;
• Recognised psychiatric injury (however, mere distress is not enough e.g. Wainwright v Home Office)

⇒ Such harm must be intended i.e. the defendant must have intended the result

• OR, the harm must have been caused through acts where intention can be imputed
• In other words, if you deliberately set out on a cause of action with a high chance of the harm resulting then you have to take responsibility for that harm, and cant just say you didn’t mean it → you either meant to do the harm or the court will impute it

⇒ The intentional causation of harm must be 'without just cause or excuse'

• In other words, if there is a reason justifying the action of the defendant (i.e. a justification for the harm) then he/she may escape liability. For example, if the action is necessary for some reason or another, the defendant may be able to escape liability for the harm

⇒ The Protection from Harassment Act protects against a course of conduct by someone that amounts to harassment and that person knows or ought to know his course of conduct amounts to harassment (s1(1))

• A 'course of conduct' means conduct on at least two occasions: s7(3). Conduct includes speech: s7(4)
• Whether the defendant knows or out to know his conduct amounts to harassment is an objective test → thus, the context of the situation will be important in determining whether the defendant knew or to have known his conduct was harassment
• It was said in Sunderland CC v Conn (2007) that ‘what might not be harassment on the factory floor or in the barrack room might well be harassment in the hospital ward...’.

⇒ Exemptions: there will be no harassment in the following situations: A course of conduct pursued for the purposes of preventing or detecting a crime (s.1(3)(a)); where the defendant has been given legal authority in the way he/she did (s.1(3)(b)); or the course of conduct was "reasonable" in the circumstances (s.1(3)(c))

• See the case of Hayes v Willoughby, where the Supreme Court considered the scope of the exemption in s1(3)(a)

⇒ s.3(1) states that an actual or apprehended breach of section 1 may be the subject of a claim in civil proceedings by the person who is or may be the victim of the course of conduct in question