Torts NextGen Bar Exam Study Guide

About Torts

Intentional torts, negligence, strict and products liability, and damages. NCBE flags 9 of its topics at memorize level; the rest lean on provided materials and reasoning.

From chapter 1, Intentional Torts & Defenses

Intentional torts are the law's answer to deliberate wrongs — a punch, a threat, a locked door, a taken car. They protect three interests: your body and dignity (battery, assault, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress), and your property (trespass to land, trespass to chattels, conversion). Learn them as a family, because they share one skeleton: a voluntary act by the defendant, done with intent, that causes a particular kind of harm. Master the intent element and the seven torts almost define themselves. This topic is starred, which means the exam will hand you no statute — you must recall the elements cold and spot the tort from a fact pattern. The good news: intentional-tort rules are crisp and stable, and once you can name each element you can practically hear a fact pattern check the boxes. Two framing points before we start. First, a plaintiff's prima facie case and a defendant's defense are separate steps — first ask whether all the elements are met, then ask whether a privilege (consent, self-defense, necessity, and the rest) excuses the conduct. Second, most of these rules come from the Restatement (Second) of Torts, which we use throughout as the standard statement of the modern majority rule.