Week 5--RESEARCH PAPER ASSIGNMENT

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Feb 20, 2024

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Self-Defense Nightmare: A Lesson In Self-Defense Gone Wrong Jesus Emmanuel Jehovah, Student #32643727 Liberty University GOVT280: Undergraduate Torts, Autumn 2023 Professor Jennifer Riedthaler-Williams Due Date: September 25, 2023; Extension Granted

2 I. Introduction Some well-intended efforts can wreak severe harm, giving rise to liability and a multitude of claims against those involved. This is what happened when self-defense instructor Jack Bond decided to give his students a real-life learning experience. Specifically, while working for a local community recreation center and unbeknownst to his class, Bond secretly paid actress Christie Steeple to enter one of his classes and attack him. The plan was for Bond to use such staged fake attack to show his class how to defend themselves in a real-world setting. When the plan was executed, Steeple entered a class, immediately screamed at Bond that he was a “no good man” and “was going to get what he had coming to him,” and then charged at Bond and began choking him. Before Bond could demonstrate his self-defense techniques, new student Kelly Knight ran forward and tried to stab Steeple with a pencil to protect Bond, but missed and ended up stabbing fellow student Larry Lark in the leg. Meanwhile, student Bob Eagen (who attended class for several months) used a technique to throw Steeple to the ground and in doing so broke her arm. Student Sandy Slep was so scared at what she thought was an actual attack that she fled the building, sprinted across the street, and was struck by a car and instantly killed. Other students were so afraid they cowered in corners screaming and sobbing and needed months of intense counseling to regain their confidence. Given this series of tragic events, Bond’s well- intended yet poorly planned lesson went awry, but did such give rise to claims against any of the parties involved? Hereinafter, this question is answered as it relates to specific parties in such incident and claims they may have against other involved parties. II. Does Steeple have a successful claim against Bond and, if so, on what basis? Steeple has a viable claim against Bond for negligence based on her being a commercial invitee of Bond, and also based on their special relationship as employer and employee (Edwards, 2016, §4-10b). Steeple was, in effect, injured while being a commercial invitee of

3 Bond and working/performing in the classroom for Bond. As an inviter, Bond had a duty to use reasonable care to protect his commercial invitee (Steeple) from harm, to consider possible “hidden dangers,” and “to take reasonable steps to prevent the harm that occurred to [Steeple]” (Edwards, 2016, §4-5b). The duty of protection an inviter owes to commercial invitees/visitors includes “[t]he duty to protect visitors…from a foreseeable risk that a third person will injure a visitor” on the property and that “as the risk of danger increases, the amount of care to be exercised also increases. Adams v. C3 Pipeline Constr. Inc. , 30 F.4th 943, 973 (10th Cir. 2021). And as employer, Bond had a duty to protect Steeple (his employee) from dangers she was not able to protect herself from (Edwards, 2016, §4-10b) and “to prevent foreseeable harm to [his] employe[e].” McKenzie v. Allconnect, Inc. , 369 F. Supp. 3d 810, 818 (E.D. Ky. 2019) (bracketing supplied). Here, the risk of harm to Steeple was foreseeable and she was not able to protect herself from such. 1 Bond had a duty to prevent such danger and harm and could have easily done so by, for example, yelling to students that it was a fake attack before they hurt Steeple or having someone else present to prevent students from using physical force against Steeple, to tell students to watch Bond defend himself, or to tell students it was a fake attack. Bond negligently failed to do so. As a direct and proximate result of such negligence, Steeple incurred a broken arm (and several students were hurt and one killed), and Bond is liable for such. Id , Adams , 30 F.4th at 973. 1 Conducting a staged/fake violent attack in a self-defense class unbeknownst to the students created an extreme probability and risk that: (a) some or many of the students would respond to such fake attack with physical force to incapacitate Steeple to prevent her from harming Bond, and (b) such physical force could and would result in injury to Steeple. Moreover, Steeple would not be able to defend herself from such a student defensive attack because the students very likely would not be dissuaded from incapacitating her if she if she asserted the attack was fake because they would not believe such unless Bond were to corroborate such, and because she would very likely be overpowered in numbers and/or strength. In these circumstances there is a much greater likelihood than not that Steeple would have been (and was) unable to protect herself from harm from the students without Bond acting to prevent such harm, yet Bond failed to do so.

4 As for damages, Steeple would be entitled to recover from Bond general and special compensatory damages to compensate her for her pain and suffering, lost wages, and medical bills, and to try to restore her to the position she was in before she sustained her broken arm (Edwards, 2016, §7-1). While it may be more challenging to do so, Steeple could also potentially get punitive damages. “Punitive damages have long been an available remedy at common law for wanton, willful, or outrageous conduct, but have also been awarded when a defendant engaged in reckless action, that was worse than negligent but less than malicious.” Kenai Ironclad Corp. v. CP Marine Servs., LLC , 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 27513, *13 (5th Cir. 2023)(internal citations and quotation marks omitted). A jury could find Bond not acting to prevent harm to Steeple was outrageous (especially since he could have at any time before Steeple was injured very easily yelled to the students that it was fake and to not touch Steeple, but did not) and a jury could find that such constituted “reckless action, that was worse than negligent but less than malicious,” and award punitive damages on such basis. Id , Kenai , 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 27513 at *13. III. Does Steeple have a successful claim against Eagen and, if so, on what basis? Based on the limited facts provided, Steeple has a viable claim against Eagen for battery based on the unwanted offensive physical contact and broken arm she incurred when Eagen used a manipulative technique to throw her to the ground. 2 A person is subject to liability to another for battery if he acts “to cause a harmful or offensive contact with the person of the other or a third person, or an imminent apprehension of such a contact[, and] harmful contact with the person of the other directly or indirectly results.” Restatement (Second) of Torts, §13. Here, it is obvious that Steeple did not want to have her arm broken by Eagen, yet that is what Eagen did and such constituted battery. For such, Steeple could obtain general and special compensatory 2 Steeple may also have a claim against Eagen for assault, depending on whether she was aware of the impending offensive or harmful contact from Eagen (Edwards, 2016, §3-2b), but the information provided does not indicate whether Steeple was aware of the impending offensive or harmful contact from Eagen before it occurred.

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