You are flying your glider around your local airport for fun one late Saturday afternoon in July.
Question:
You are flying your glider around your local airport for fun one late Saturday afternoon in July. The convective currents are great that day. You fly for about 1.5 hours enjoying a perfect day for gliding. You decide you better start heading back to the airport when you realize that you had strayed further from the airport than you had thought. You don't recognize the landmarks below you but you start heading in the general direction you believe the airport to be. The updrafts have died down quite a bit and you still don't see the airport. You are gradually losing altitude and still do not see the airport and soon it becomes evident to you that you will not be able to make it to the airport to land. You start looking for a field and see a lush green field off the right wing at about 2 miles. You declare an emergency and turn in that direction and eventually touch down in the field, flattening about 200 yards of hemp plants that are being grown for CBD production. You mark your position using the map application on your phone and then call your buddy with a flat-bed trailer to meet you in the field. While you are waiting, you see someone in fatigues approach you pointing an M-16. "This is private property and you have just destroyed thousands of dollars-worth of plants. You need to get off this property right now!" Just as you start to explain the situation, you hear the roar of an engine and to your horror you see your buddy cutting a fresh swath through the field with his monster truck and the flat-bed trailer. Just as he breaks into the clearing the man with the M-16 shoots two tires flat on the truck. He yells, "Leave the plane! Leave the truck and get off my property RIGHT NOW or I will turn you both into plant food!"
a) Have you, the pilot, committed an intentional tort? Explain.
b) Has your monster truck-owning buddy committed an intentional tort? Explain.
c) Has the landowner committed an intentional tort? Explain.
d) Were you, the pilot negligent? Explain.
e) Is there any defense that might keep you from having to pay for the damage to the hemp plants?