This case takes place in the 1930s and still stands today. Almy is an “insane” individual living under the care of McGuire, a registered nurse. Almy does not have a history of violence. Almy is upset in her room and is breaking things. Out of concern that Almy might hurt herself, Nurse McGuire steps in to take away broken shards and the such.

Almy, at this time is holding the leg of a table as if she’s holding a weapon. She’s holding it low and tight. McGuire steps into the room and tries to grab a hold of Almy’s hand when Almy hits McGuire in the head with the wooden leg.

McGuire sues for battery. Now, the definition of Battery is “intentional infliction of a harmful bodily contact upon another.” The issue before the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts is whether the judge of the lower courts should have directed a verdict for Almy. In short, is an insane person liable for torts?

According to the courts, the answer is yes. Insane people — or, in our terms today, the mentally disabled — are liable for torts because, and this is the interesting/controversial part, the focus of torts and liability, in general, should be on “acts done, without regard to fault“ (emphasis mine) as opposed to the thought that liability in torts should be focused on fault. Now, the definition of fault is also pretty vague (“an error or defect of judgment or of conduct; any deviation from prudence or duty resulting from inattention, incapacity, perversity, bad faith, or mismanagement.” In short, the question of liability/torts has the mental state of the person on one side and the act done on the other side.

The court avoids tackling the meat of this debate and instead focuses on the fact that Almy was holding the table leg, which means that she was capable of entertaining the thought to use the leg as a weapon and, in fact, did use it as a weapon. However, the court goes even further and states that once it is proven that the person (insane or no) is capable of entertaining intent and has entertained the intent, when determining the law should not focus further into the mental condition of the individual in order to excuse him “if it should appear that delusion or other consequence of his affliction has caused him to entertain that intent or that a normal person would not have entertained it.”

The first thing that came to mind was Terminator 2. If, for example, Sarah Connor, were in the psychiatric facility and hit a doctor thinking that the doctor was a terminator, then she would be liable for hitting him because the only thing that the court cares about is if the Connor is capable of thinking of the action and actually acts out on it.

And I’m really torn on this one. I’m glad that there is a debate between the act itself and the concept of fault, and part of me is sad to see that the fault argument hasn’t gained much ground since the 1930s. And at the same time I see that fault could be moved and shifted to the point where we’d really need a court full of mind and emotion readers to understand what really happened. If a person thinks differently and that’s what we focus on, then what does happen to fault? Shouldn’t the focus be more on the act itself and focus on that independent of anything else? After all, the case is there before the court because the other party was injured. And their injuries really are independent of the mental state of the person at the time, the injuries are there, so what can the court do about it? Why is it even a question of law? This case makes me really sad that there isn’t more of a balance.

Someone who is mentally ill can have the intent to do harm to another. Like I mentioned above, if Sarah Connor hits the Psychiatrist because she thinks that he is a Terminator, she still hits the psychiatrist and since she “entertained” the thought and acted on it, then she is liable. Now, when it comes to fault, that’s much harder to defend. And, like above, it seems like focusing on fault is an ever-expanding realm in which we’d have to have telepaths and empaths to understand what was happening at that very moment in order to adequately analyze the situation and the mental state of the person. However, when it comes to the car driver who suffers a heart attack, the driver who suffers a heart attack does not entertain the notion of intent and does not act on any notion. Here is an issue of fault rather than acts done. The act has been done, but due to the mental state of the individual, the fault and mental state do matter. The court specifies that this case applies to “intentional damage” of which we don’t see any if the person is in a car and happens to have a heart attack. Again, I’m really torn about this, mental state should matter with respect to liability and torts…but I’m not fully sold on the fact that it is even possible to take it into account all the time. And if it’s not, then it just begins a slippery slope and opens the door to getting out of litigation.

Where is the good?

***
Update
For the 1Ls searching out the case. Knock yourselves out:

McGuire v. Almy (Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, 1937. 295 Mass. 323, 8 N.E.2d 760)
a. Facts: Almy (D) is “insane” and McGuire (P) is her nurse, employed to take care of D.
i. D goes crazy and starts breaking things in her room,
ii. D and others go into P’s room to take the broken stuff away before P hurts herself.
iii. D is holding the leg of a table, “as if she were going to strike.”
iv. P enters and tries to grab hold of D’s hand
v. D hits P’s head with the table leg.
b. Issue: Whether the judge should have directed a verdict for D.
i. Is an insane person (in this case, D) liable for torts?
1. Answer: Yes.
2. Rule: “Where an insane person by his act does intentional damage to the person or property of another he is liable for that damage in the same circumstances in which a normal person would be liable.”
c. The Court notes that this issue hasn’t really come up in Massachusetts and so turns “to authorities elsewhere” and finds that “in the broadest terms…an insane person is liable for his torts.” = (An insane person is capable of intent.)
i. “As a rule, no distinction is made between those torts which would ordinarily be classed as intentional and those which would be ordinarily be classed as negligent, nor do the courts discuss the effect of different kinds of insanity or of varying degrees of capacity as bearing upon the ability of D to understand the particular act in question or to make a reasoned decision with respect to it…”
1. Torts focusing or related to the concept of malice are different because the insane are incapable of that
ii. In addition, by having this blanket rule that the insane can be liable for their torts, it encourages those who are charged with taking care of the insane be more careful with them.
1. “…a rule imposing liability tends to make more watchful those persons who have charge of the defendant and who may be supposed to have some interest in preserving his property; that as an insane person must pay for his support, if he is financially able, so he ought to pay for the damage which he does…”
2. This is a policy motive. In essence, it serves as a reinforcement that alters behavior. – Social Policy Deterrence.
a. These arguments all begin with a social goal. (Look below for the Value argument. They both parallel each other.) Here, society wants to get all people with mental illnesses to stop inflicting physical contact to the persons of others. (Value)
b. Now link the value/social objective with the interpretation of the rule. (Because if A, the societal goal, is true, then the court’s interpretation of the rule is also true.) So, here it’d be linking that since all people with mental illnesses should stop inflicting physical contact with other people’s bodies, then it would follow that people with mental illnesses should be able to intend, and, therefore, be liable.
c. Now, explain the link. Why is there a link? – Step 1: People must be motivated by money (i.e., rational economic players); Step 2: Behavior must be able to be changed (However, this doesn’t really flow since mentally ill people might not necessarily be rational or have the ability to change behavior. In order to reconcile this, the court suggests that the behavior of those watching over the mentally ill be changed. Which is to say that the behavior of those watching over the mentally ill who have a financial stake in the mentally ill person.); Step 3: People who have a stake in the mentally ill can, and should, be motivated to protect them. Therefore, financial deterrents are ok.
iii. The Court recognizes that this blanket rule is criticized on the grounds that the focus is on the “mediaeval conception of liability for acts done, without regard to fault, as opposed to what is said to be the general modern theory that liability in tort should rest upon fault.”
1. Definition of Fault (Black’s Law Dictionary, Second Pocket Edition): “an error or defect of judgment or of conduct; any deviation from prudence or duty resulting from inattention, incapacity, perversity, bad faith, or mismanagement.” Then says, “See Negligence”
a. Negligence: The failure to exercise the standard of care that a reasonably prudent person would have exercised in a similar situation…”
2. BUT, “there is strong force in the reasons underlying these decisions. They are consistent with the general statements found in the cases dealing with the liability of infants for torts, including…cases in which the child was so young as to render his capacity for fault comparable to that of many insane persons. Fault is by no means at the present day a universal prerequisite to liability, and the theory that it should be such has been obliged very recently to yield at several points to what have been thought to be paramount considerations of public good.
a. This is all dicta, not rationale. Just because the court is stupid does not mean that they are legally wrong. Why can’t we skip the rationale? Because when we have to further figure out what the rule means, we can try to figure out what the court will do in future cases based on how they thought out this case.
d. Rationale
i. Look for precedent
1. Binding – Didn’t find any Binding authority in the Almy case.
2. Persuasive – Did find it. “almost invariably…in the broadest terms, insane people are liable for their torts.” This means that sometimes
ii. Arguments – Public Policy (focus on this) All legal arguments go through three phases
1. Value (something that the court believes and something that the law must be consistent with)
2. Value is linked to what we want the rule to mean (i.e., If you believe a. then you believe b.)
3. Explain why that link is true.
4. Interest 1 – People with mental illness must pay for support
5. Interest 2 – People with mental illness must pay for damage?
a. Because support and damage are similar, they must be treated similarly. ∴ They must _____
iii. Argument/Value of Goal (Deep Pockets): People with abundant wealth should assume the cost of others’ injuries. → Between two innocents, the one with greater wealth must pay.
1. If courts want an easy rule, then court should find intent regardless of mental capacity.
a. This rule makes the issue of mental capacity irrelevant to legal issue of intent
b. Mental capacity is a hard legal issue to figure out.
c. ∴ new rule is easier.
iv. Argument/Value of Goal ():
e. Decision/Rule/Holding – With respect to the law:
i. Court decides it doesn’t want to deal with that whole “fault vs. acts done” issue since it can be said that, “where an insane person by his act does intentional damage to the person or property of another he is liable for that damage in the same circumstances in which a normal person would be liable.” – Issue: Whether an insane person who by his act does intentional damage to the person or property of another is liable for that damage in the same circumstances in which a normal person would be liable. – Holding: Yuppers.
1. “This means that in so far as particular intent would be necessary in order to render a normal person liable, the insane person, in order to be liable, must have been capable of entertaining that same intent and must have entertained it in fact. But the law will not inquire further into his peculiar mental condition with a view to excusing him if it should appear that delusion or other consequence of his affliction has caused him to entertain that intent or that a normal person would not have entertained it.
ii. With respect to the rule of the facts of this case – “it is apparent that the jury could find that D was capable of entertaining and that she did entertain an intent to strike and to injure P and that she acted upon that intent.”