The fact pattern
Read it twice before you look at the answer
Intending only to playfully startle his friend, Alex shoves the friend lightly from behind in a crowded hallway. The friend stumbles into a bystander, knocking her into a doorframe and bruising her shoulder. Alex says he never meant to touch anyone but the friend and never meant to hurt anyone. The bystander sues Alex for battery.
Try it before you scroll
Spend 15 minutes writing your own IRAC answer first — the model below is far more useful after you have committed to your own issue list. These issues are in the facts:
- Battery — intent and harmful-or-offensive contact
- Whether 'intent' means intent to harm or intent to contact
- Transferred intent to the unintended victim
Model IRAC answer
One way to write it — not the only way. Compare it to yours.
Issue
Whether Alex committed battery against the bystander when he intentionally shoved his friend as a prank and the friend was knocked into the bystander.
Rule
Battery is an intentional act that causes a harmful or offensive contact with another person. The intent element requires only the intent to bring about the contact (or apprehension of it), not the intent to cause harm; a defendant who intends a contact is liable even if he did not intend or expect injury. Under the doctrine of transferred intent, if a defendant intends a battery against one person but the contact lands on another, the intent transfers to the actual victim.
Application
Alex intended to shove his friend — that is an intentional act aimed at producing a contact. His claim that he 'never meant to hurt anyone' is legally irrelevant: battery requires intent to contact, not intent to injure, so a playful-but-deliberate shove satisfies the intent element. The shove also qualifies as a harmful or offensive contact; even a light, unconsented push is offensive to a reasonable sense of dignity, and here it produced actual harm.
The complication is that the contact landed on the bystander, not the intended target. Transferred intent resolves this: because Alex intended a battery against his friend, that intent transfers to the bystander who actually suffered the contact. The chain is direct — the shove caused the friend to stumble into the bystander, bruising her shoulder.
Alex's best argument is consent or that the contact was too trivial, but consent (if any) extends only to his friend, not the bystander, and the resulting injury defeats the triviality point.
Conclusion
Alex is liable for battery. His intent to contact his friend satisfies the intent element despite his lack of intent to harm, and transferred intent carries that intent to the bystander who suffered the offensive, harmful contact.
Verify before you rely on this. This is an original teaching example, not legal advice. Rules vary by jurisdiction and by your professor's framing — check every rule statement against your casebook and class notes before using it.
Now try it timed.
Open the IRAC Practice Gym, set a 15-minute timer, and write your own answer to this fact pattern. You get feedback that helps you think — never an answer written for you.