University:
University of California, Berkeley
Course:
Law 200.2 | Civil Procedure for LL.M.Students
Academic year:

2020
Views:

259

Pages:

1
Author:

Amira Hester

Defense and Repossession of Property Katko v. Briney Iowa Court 1971 Parties: Defendant Bertha Briney inherited an unoccupied farmhouse. The plaintiff and one McDonough had been to the house before and were looking for old bottles and jars. Procedural History: The jury found for the plaintiff in the sum of $20,000 actual damages and $10,000 punitive damages. Affirmed. Facts: Bertha Briney and her husband boarded up the windows and posted no trespass signs and eventually they set up a shotgun trap in one of the rooms. The gun was rigged to an old iron bed, barrel pointed at the door. It was pointed to hit the legs of the intruder. The plaintiff and McDonough broke into the house and plaintiff entered the bedroom. The shotgun went off and much of his right leg was blown away. He spent 40 days in the hospital. Issue: Does a person have the right to rig up a shotgun to go off as self-defense for her property? Rule, Holding, Reasoning: Restatement of Torts states: The value of human life and limb, not only to the individual concerned but also to society, so outweighs the interest of a possessor of land in excluding from it those whom he is not willing to admit thereto that a possessor of land has..no privilege to use force intended or likely to cause death or serious harm against another whom the possessor sees about to enter his premises or meddle with his chattel, unless the intrusion threatens death or serious bodily harm to the occupiers or users of the premises.. A possessor of land cannot do indirectly and by a mechanical device that which, were he present, he could not do immediately and in person.