question on legal action

[Cannon]

Well, i am asking how much trouble I can be in on this. I am envolved in a few law suits at the moment, but one may come up that I am curious about.

the situation is as follows.
last month I ran over a cat. Not necesarily on purpose, however, i definatly did NOT swerve to miss it. It is my neighbors cat and it shits in my lawn and backyard, so i dont' really like the miserable dreaded beast. So I do not feal remorse for running it over. However, after the cat was ran over, the neighbor confronted me about the cat on MY property. Which resulted in a scuffle.. push push, shove shove, swing, tooth, eye, nose.

he ended up in the hospital with a concussion, a broken nose, and a few missing teeth.

Now, I know I was on MY property, and he came onto it without permission. but, being that I pushed him first, and that I ran his damned cat over, would I be in any legal trouble.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

It's difficult to say. While he can always take you to court you can easily claim self defense. You might want to inform the judge that the neighbor had a practice of "your land is my land" and unfortunately his cat was involved in an accident on my property. Coming across onto your property to start a fight could reasonably prompt a claim of justifiable self-defense but you would have to explain how your first punch was in reasonable fear of being hurt. The rule of law is that you can meet force with reasonable force. If he walked onto your property and you decided to hit him because he trespassed, that would not be an act of self-defense since there was no real fear of danger or harm to your person.

Well, i am asking how much trouble I can be in on this. I am envolved in a few law suits at the moment, but one may come up that I am curious about.

the situation is as follows.
last month I ran over a cat. Not necesarily on purpose, however, i definatly did NOT swerve to miss it. It is my neighbors cat and it shits in my lawn and backyard, so i dont' really like the miserable dreaded beast. So I do not feal remorse for running it over. However, after the cat was ran over, the neighbor confronted me about the cat on MY property. Which resulted in a scuffle.. push push, shove shove, swing, tooth, eye, nose.

he ended up in the hospital with a concussion, a broken nose, and a few missing teeth.

Now, I know I was on MY property, and he came onto it without permission. but, being that I pushed him first, and that I ran his damned cat over, would I be in any legal trouble.

 

[NYClex]

As the professor said, you have two angles of defense here: Self defense because you feared an immediate physical assault, and defense of property. Under tort law you are privileged to use reasonable force to remove a trespasser from your land. The court would have to weigh the facts if the force used was reasonable. Depending on your state's criminal code you probably have the same defenses against criminal charges.

You also can sue the neighbor for assault and battery and additionally for trespass and file a criminal complaint against him for trespass and assault.

As for the cat, unless your state has a special law protecting animals against willful abuse, it will only be considered chattel. The owner might sue for destroying the chattel, but only if he can prove you were intentionally or at least negligently killing the cat and then his damages are probably restricted to the cat's value.

Having all these potential lawsuits and charges lined up on both sides may be everyone then will calm down and drop them mutually.