It is Halloween and Dan, who is very large and wearing a Dracula costume, feels that

this will be a great opportunity to intimidate Victoria who lives next door, because he is
certain she is the one who has been calling the police when he has a party.
Consequently, Dan waits until dar and when there are no ids around he pounds loudly
and continuously on Victoria!s door. "hen Victoria eventually opens the door Dan lets
out a menacing growl, Victoria faints, and Dan happily leaves.
Is Dan guilty of Assault?
Assault- Common Law
#t modern law, assault was an attempted but failed battery.
#ttempted battery is where one, who with specific intent, taes substanital steps toward
the perpetration of an unlawful touching of another, but it unable to do so.
Here, Dan wants to intimidate Victoria and thus pounds at her door and when she
answers growls at her. $he facts do not indicate that Dan had specific intent to cause a
touchign because the fact that he wants to intimidate her and his obvious means of
doing such by growling at her when she opened the door does not show intent to want to
touch her.
%tate may argue that he was trying to batter her using his voice with the vibrations oof
sound, however this is most liely not a means of touching, and further if one could be
found to batter using their voice, Dan would have succeeded and not failed at battery.
&ecause the elements cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, Dan is not guilty of
common law assault.
Assault- Modern Law
'odernly, assault is the intentional placing of another in reasonable apprehension of an
imminent harmful or offensive touching.
Here, Dan!s going to Victoria!s door and and growling at her when she opens the door
shows intent because it was voluntarily did the volitional act of growling. Here,
presumable mere seconds after growling, Victoria faints, and thus it could be shown that
there was reasonable apprehension for those mere seconds in between the growl and
her reaction because her apprehension was the most liely cause of the fainting thus
showing she had apprehension in order to faint. #lthough it can be shown she had
apprehension hard to determine if the apphrensions was of imminent harmful or
offensive contact( %tate will argue it was apprehension of imminent offensive contact
because a growling reasonable is a precursory sign to an attac, especially from Dracula
who sucs peoples blood, while Dan will argue that it was Halloween and there was an
reasonably expectation of people in scary costumes, saying spooy things showing up at
her door.
&ecause it was Halloween and because it would be hard to prove beyond a reasonable
doubt that Dan desired to place her in this apprehension of being touched rather than
)ust scared of a monster, Dan is not liely guilty of modern assault.