Could Speaker Be Sued for An Intentional Tort, So that Plaintiffs Would Receive Punitive Damages?
That leads to our second question: Can the potential plaintiffs sue Speaker for punitive damages? To begin, choice of law will matter a great deal, since punitive damages, as they are known in the United States, are not permitted in Europe. But again, let’s assume that Georgia tort law applies. If so, could Speaker be sued for an intentional tort, and therefore punitive damages? One possibility is the tort of “battery” — defined as an unconsented touching. Colloquially, we may think of “battery” as something one might see in a violent fistfight, but the legal definition is much narrower. Thus, a passenger infected with TB could establish battery if she could prove that Speaker knew or was “substantially certain” that his TB virus would make contact with her body. However, this might be very hard to prove — for several reasons. First, it is still in dispute how easily communicable Speaker’s disease actually was. Second, and more importantly, the legal standard looks to Speaker’s actua
