Issue: Does New Jersey law, or the law other jurisdictions, recognize Aunlawful detention’ as an independent cause of action?
| Area of Law: | Criminal Law, Litigation & Procedure |
| Keywords: | Unlawful detention; Independent cause of action; False imprisonment claim |
| Jurisdiction: | New Jersey |
| Cited Cases: | 628 A.2d 829; 235 F.3d 1249; 895 P.2d 212 |
| Cited Statutes: | None |
| Date: | 03/01/2001 |
The case law and statutes of New Jersey reveal no separate cause of action for “Unlawful
Detention” separate and apart from a false imprisonment claim. Although no court has ever specifically addressed the issue of whether a separate cause of action exists, New Jersey courts appear to take it as a given that “unlawful detention” is simply an element of a false imprisonment claim. See, e.g., Fair Oaks Hosp. v. Pocrass, 628 A.2d 829, 837 (N.J. Super. 1993). Under New Jersey law, a false imprisonment claim includes the following elements: (1) a person acts intending to confine another within the boundaries fixed by him or her; (2) this act directly or indirectly results in such confinement of this other person; and (3) this other person is conscious of the confinement or is harmed by it. See id. at 836. New Jersey courts often use the shorthand phrase “unlawful detention” to describe the first and second elements set forth above. See, e.g., id. at 836. The courts’ use of this phrase has never been understood as establishing some kind of separate “unlawful detention” claim.
New Jersey law appears to be in line with the vast majority of other jurisdictions in recognizing “unlawful detention” as merely an element of false imprisonment. In Dry v. U.S., the only case directly on point, the Tenth Circuit summed up the existing case law as “suggest[ing] that ‘an unlawful detention’ is an element of or simply another […]