Fight Back Legally with Steve Smucker, Personal Injury Lawyer
Civil vs. Criminal Assault and Battery Cases
If You’ve Been Assaulted By a Nightclub Bouncer
Oregon Law States
Assault and Battery in the Case Law

Fight Back Legally with Steve Smucker, Personal Injury Lawyer

If you are the victim of assault and battery crime, you have undoubtedly suffered damages as a result. You deserve to be fairly compensated for those losses; it’s your right. Not only is it gainful to contact a proven expert personal injury lawyer experienced in civil assault and battery; it’s empowering.

A lawyer can determine whether the person who committed the assault and battery has assets or insurance to cover your damages and explain the value of your case. If they do, the personal injury attorney will represent you in civil court to recover damages resulting from the assault and battery. Damages include medical expenses, lost wages, lost future earning capacity, pain and suffering, and punitive damages.

Steve Smucker, a personal injury lawyer, will maneuver through the complexities of trial law to recover the fair compensation you deserve. Steve will persevere until all legal avenues to recover damages have been exhausted.. As well, his passion for justice will help re-establish your dignity and peace of mind.

Get more information; contact Steve Smucker for a free consultation. For information about clients helped by Smucker’s experience and expertise as a civil assault and battery trial lawyer, see client case results.

There are no up front costs. You only pay attorney fees if the case is decided in your favor and you collect damages.

Civil vs. Criminal Assault and Battery Cases

Assault and battery are both a crime and a tort. A tort being a wrongful act or infringement of someone’s right leading to legal liability. This may involve both a criminal prosecution and a personal injury lawsuit in civil court.

Aside from criminal prosecution, you have a right to pursue civil damages for injuries caused by the attack. Once a judge or jury determines that an assault and/or battery was committed, fair compensation is decided.

Three damages may be awarded.

• Economic Damages —medical expenses, lost wages, and impaired earning capacity.
• Non-economic Damages — pain and suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life.
• Punitive Damages —goes beyond economic and non-economic damages and are awarded as an added punishment against the attacker. This occurs in particularly terrible cases.

If You’ve Been Assaulted by a Nightclub Bouncer

Nightclub security has no special rights when it comes to assault and battery. They do not have a special right to physically remove you from a club premises.

Most bouncers are regular employees with no special security training or permits. They have no more authority to commit assault or battery than you do as a customer.

Legally, a bouncer can only ask you to leave. If you refuse, he or she may call the police, who can remove you. However, like any citizen, they can defend themselves or detain you if you are committing a crime.

If a nightclub bouncer has assaulted you, they are likely to say you started the fight and they were defending themselves. It is best not to give them any reason to attack you. If the fight was obviously uneven, you may have a case. If so, it is just like any other civil assault and battery case.

Often bouncers will not have assets to cover damages that may be caused in an assault and battery. It is important to include the employer in such a lawsuit, because nightclubs will have employer liability. While there are challenges in recovering benefits from the company, it is a viable avenue.

Steve Smucker, personal injury lawyer, has successfully litigated Portland nightclub bouncer assault and battery cases, and knows where to find records helpful in proving your case. If you have had a run-in with a bouncer and want compensation for your losses, get more information by contacting Steve for a free consultation.

The Law States

UCJI* No. 40.01: Assault
An assault occurs when (1) one commits an act intending to cause a harmful or offensive contact with the person of another, or to cause a belief by the other person that a harmful or offensive contact may immediately occur, and (2) the other person reasonably believes that such a contact is likely to occur immediately.

UCJI No. 46.08: Possessor’s Duty to Invitee
It is the duty of the possessor of land to make the premises reasonably safe for the invitee’s visit. The possessor must exercise reasonable care to discover conditions of the premises that create an unreasonable risk of harm to the invitee. The possessor must exercise reasonable care either to eliminate the condition creating that risk or to warn any foreseeable invitee of the risk so as to enable the invitee to avoid harm.

CAVEAT: In cases where the condition cannot be encountered with reasonable safety even if the danger was known and appreciated by the invitee, the following additional instruction should be given:

If you find that the condition that existed could not be encountered with reasonable safety even if the danger was known and appreciated by the invitee, the possessor is obligated to do more than warn; the possessor must take reasonable and feasible steps to eliminate the danger.

UCJI No. 46.09: Invitee’s Duty

The invitee is required to exercise reasonable care to avoid harm from a condition on the premises of which the invitee knows or, in the exercise of reasonable care, should know.

In determining and comparing negligence, if any, you must consider the obviousness of danger and the ease or difficulty with which harm to the plaintiff from that danger could be avoided by either party.

Assault and Battery in the Case Law

"Assault is an intentional attempt to do violence to the person of another, coupled with the present ability to carry the intention into effect." (Cook v. Kinsua Pine Mills Co., 207 OR 34 (1956)

"Battery is a voluntary act that causes intentionally harmful or offensive contact with another." (Cook v. Kinsua Pine Mills Co., 207 OR 34 (1956).

"An employer may be liable for an assault and battery committed by an employee, based on the doctrine of respondeat superior**." Chesterman v. Barmon (1986).

"Even when a person has the right to use force to accomplish a legitimate purpose, he or she may be liable for assault and battery when the force used is excessive under the circumstances." Smith v. Fields Chevrolet, 239 OR 233 (1964).

*Uniform Civil Jury Instructions

**Respondeat superior: Latin for "let the master answer," a key doctrine in the law of agency, which provides that a principal (employer) is responsible for the actions of his/her/its agent (employee) in the "course of employment."