Torts bar exam questions & notes.
Intentional torts, negligence, strict and products liability, and damages. Try 4 free exam-format questions with explanations below, preview the notes, and see every topic NCBE lists for the NextGen exam.
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From the Torts notes: Intentional Torts & Defenses
The first topic of every subject is free with an account, notes included. Here is how the notes read.
Why this matters
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.
What "intent" actually means
Intent is the word that does all the work, and it means something more precise than 'meaning to be mean.' A defendant acts with intent when the defendant either (1) desires to cause the tortious result, or (2) knows the result is substantially certain to follow. The second branch is the one students miss. If you yank a chair away as someone sits down, you may not want them to hit the floor — but if you know a fall is substantially certain, the intent element is satisfied. Note what is required is intent to cause the contact, confinement, or entry — not intent to cause the ultimate injury and not intent to break the law. That is why a practical joke, a benign motive, or ignorance of the law is no shield.
How intent is proven
- Purpose: the defendant acted for the very purpose of bringing about the harmful or offensive contact, apprehension, confinement, or entry.
- Knowledge to a substantial certainty: the defendant knew that result was substantially certain to occur, even if it was not the goal. (A high probability is not enough — it must be near-certain.)
- The intent is to cause the immediate tortious act (the contact, the apprehension, the entry), not to cause the eventual injury — a defendant who intends a harmless touch is still liable if it turns out to cause serious harm.
- Motive is irrelevant: a good, playful, or well-meaning motive does not negate intent. Intending the act is enough.
- Mistake of law or fact is generally no defense: intending to enter what you wrongly think is your own land still satisfies the intent to enter.
All 12 topics in Torts
Scope-alignedmarks the 9 topics NCBE flags at memorize level — know these cold; the rest lean on provided materials and reasoning.
- 01Free
Intentional Torts & Defenses★
Intentional torts and their defenses: harms to the person (assault, battery, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress) and to property interests (trespass to land, trespass to chattels, conversion); the intent element and transferred intent; and defenses including consent, self-defense, defense of others and property, recapture of chattels, and necessity.
Listen to the episode - 02
Duty & Special Relationships★
The duty of care to foreseeable and unforeseeable plaintiffs: nonfeasance and affirmative duties (special relationships, voluntary undertakings, the duty to control third parties), the duties of owners and occupiers of land, negligent infliction of emotional distress (zone of danger, bystander), and pure economic loss.
Listen to the episode - 03
Standard of Care & Negligence Per Se★
The standard of care: the reasonably prudent person and the standards applied to children, physically and mentally impaired persons, professionals, and those acting in emergencies; and rules of conduct derived from statutes (negligence per se) and the relevance of custom.
Listen to the episode - 04
Res Ipsa & Proof★
Proving fault with direct and circumstantial evidence, including the conditions for res ipsa loquitur (an incident of a type that does not ordinarily occur without negligence, an instrumentality under the defendant’s exclusive control).
Listen to the episode - 05
Causation★
Actual causation (the but-for test, the substantial-factor test, and multiple necessary or sufficient causes) and proximate causation (foreseeability, the scope-of-the-risk test, and intervening and superseding causes).
Listen to the episode - 06
Comparative Fault & Others' Acts★
Liability for the acts of others (parental responsibility and nondelegable duties), pure and modified comparative negligence including secondary implied assumption of risk, and express assumption of risk.
Listen to the episode - 07
Strict Liability★
Common-law strict liability for abnormally dangerous activities: the common types of such activities, who may sue and be sued, the requirement that the harm arise from the risk that made the activity dangerous, and defenses including comparative negligence.
Listen to the episode - 08
Products Liability★
Products liability based on the design, manufacture, and distribution of products: the theories of liability, the types of defects (manufacturing defect, design defect, and failure to warn), who may sue and be sued, and defenses to such claims.
Listen to the episode - 09
Nuisance★
Private nuisance (unreasonable interference with the use and enjoyment of land, the locality rule, and the distinctions among private nuisance, trespass, and public nuisance) and public nuisance, together with defenses to such claims.
Listen to the episode - 10
Misrepresentation
Fraudulent misrepresentation and negligent misrepresentation, and defenses to such claims.
Listen to the episode - 11
Defamation & Privacy
Defamation (both common-law and constitutional aspects) and the privacy torts — intrusion upon seclusion, public disclosure of private facts, appropriation of name or likeness, and false-light publicity — together with defenses to such claims.
Listen to the episode - 12
Damages
Apportionment of responsibility among multiple tortfeasors (joint and several liability) and the categories of recoverable damages — compensatory (general and special), punitive, and nominal — including the thin-skull rule, the duty to mitigate, and statutory limitations on recovery.
Listen to the episode
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4 sample TORT questions
Real questions from the Torts bank, with the full explanation. The paid bank covers all 12 topics and difficulty levels.
A worker on a warehouse floor decides to play a joke on a coworker. As the coworker begins to lower himself onto a rolling stool, the worker yanks the stool away, certain the coworker will drop onto the concrete. The worker means only to get a laugh from the others and hopes no real harm comes of it, but the coworker lands hard and fractures his tailbone. The coworker sues for battery. The worker defends that he never wanted to injure anyone and intended nothing more than a harmless prank.
Is the worker liable for battery despite not wanting to cause any injury?
- No, because he did not desire to bring about a harmful contact.
- No, because his lighthearted, well-meaning motive negates the intent battery requires.
- Yes, because he was substantially certain the coworker would strike the floor. Correct
- Yes, because any prank that happens to cause an injury is a battery.
At a family gathering, a five-year-old grows annoyed that an elderly guest took the last cookie. As the guest starts to sit down at the dining table, the child deliberately drags the chair away, wanting the guest to drop to the floor. The guest falls and fractures her hip. She sues the child for battery. The child's parents respond that a five-year-old is far too young to be held responsible for an intentional tort and cannot really understand that pulling the chair was a wrongful thing to do.
Can the child be held liable for battery?
- Yes, because the child in fact intended the guest's contact with the floor. Correct
- Yes, because parents are automatically liable for their children's intentional torts.
- No, because a child under seven cannot form tortious intent as a matter of law.
- No, because the child did not appreciate that pulling the chair was wrongful.
At a gallery opening, an art critic becomes irritated with a server who is slow to bring him a drink. To make a point, the critic snatches the serving tray straight out of the server's hands and slams it down onto a table. He never touches the server's body, and the server is not physically hurt, only humiliated in front of the crowd. The server sues the critic for battery. The critic responds that he never laid a finger on the server and that the server suffered no injury at all.
Is the critic's conduct a battery?
- No, because the critic never made contact with the server's body.
- Yes, because seizing an object the server held is a contact with him. Correct
- No, because the server suffered no physical injury from the encounter.
- Yes, because the critic acted from a hostile, ill-tempered motive.
During a heated argument in a parking lot, a large man draws back his fist and lunges at a smaller woman as if to punch her, stopping his fist inches from her face. The woman is not frightened in the slightest — she is trained in self-defense and certain she could block any blow — but she plainly sees the fist coming and expects to be struck. She sues the man for assault. He argues that there was no assault because she admits she was never actually afraid of him for a moment.
Is the man liable to the woman for assault?
- Yes, because she reasonably expected an imminent contact, fear aside. Correct
- Yes, because his fist came within mere inches of striking her face.
- No, because the woman felt no fear of the man at any point.
- No, because he never completed an actual contact with her body.
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