MODEL PENAL CODE ANNOTATED

 
 
RESTATEMENT OF THE LAW, SECOND, TORTS

Copyright 1965, American Law Institute

RULES AND PRINCIPLES
Division One - Intentional Harms to Persons, Land, and Chattels
Chapter 3 - Privilege Arising from Consent to Intended Invasions of Interests of Personality


§ 57 FRAUD OR MISTAKE AS TO COLLATERAL MATTER

 The rule stated in § 892 B(2) as to consent induced by fraud or mistake as to a collateral matter not affecting the essential character of the conduct applies to intentional invasions of interests of personality.
 
 

COMMENTS & ILLUSTRATIONS:  Comment:

a.  See § 892 B, Comments a to f.

Illustrations:

1. A, to induce B to submit to intimate familiarities, offers her a paper which A represents to be a twenty dollar bill but which he knows to be counterfeit. B, believing the paper to be a genuine bill, submits. A is not liable to B for battery.

2. The same facts as in Illustration 1, except that the paper is offered if B will submit to a blood transfusion. A is subject to liability to B for the harm done by the operation to which A has fraudulently induced him to submit.

3. A, a surgeon, induces B to submit to a treatment of his eyes by falsely representing that the treatment will cure his vision. A's sole purpose is to obtain a fee. If the treatment involves nothing more than harmless touching of B's eyes, A is not liable to B. If it involves any pain or physical harm, A's fraud makes him subject to liability to B even though the treatment is otherwise properly given.
 
 

REPORTERS NOTES:  This Section has been changed from the first Restatement, to provide a mere cross-reference to the fuller § 892 B, with illustrations.

Compare, as supporting the Section, Oberlin v. Upson, 84 Ohio St. 111, 85 N.E. 511, Ann. Cas. 1912B 1061 (1911), seduction under promise of marriage; Martin v. Carbide & Carbon Chemicals Corp., 184 Tenn. 166, 197 S.W.2d 798 (1946), treatment by unlicensed physician.