Legal Definitions - vis absoluta

Vis absoluta refers to physical compulsion, where an individual's body is moved by an external force entirely against their will, making their actions involuntary and not attributable to their own conscious choice or intent.

In legal terms, when someone acts under vis absoluta, their movement is not considered a voluntary "act" at all because their will played no part in it. Their body is essentially treated as an object being manipulated by another force.

• Example 1: Forced Collision

  Imagine a person, Sarah, standing peacefully in a crowded subway car. Suddenly, a large, aggressive passenger behind her shoves her with immense force, causing her to lose her balance and fall directly into another passenger, Mark, who then drops and breaks his expensive laptop. In this scenario, Sarah's movement into Mark was a result of vis absoluta. She did not choose to collide with Mark; her body was physically compelled by the shover, making her collision an involuntary movement rather than a deliberate act on her part.

• Example 2: Manipulated Hand

  Consider a situation where an art forger grabs an unsuspecting artist's hand, which is holding a paintbrush, and forcibly guides it to sign a forged painting with the artist's signature. The artist struggles but cannot resist the forger's superior strength. Here, the act of signing the painting is under vis absoluta. The artist's hand was physically compelled to make the signature; their will was entirely overridden by the forger's physical force, meaning the signature was not a voluntary act of the artist.

• Example 3: Uncontrollable Environmental Force

  During a sudden and violent hurricane, a person, David, is standing near a fragile glass display window. A powerful gust of wind, strong enough to lift and move objects, picks David up and slams him into the window, causing it to shatter. David had no control over his movement or the impact. This is an instance of vis absoluta, as David's body was physically compelled by an overwhelming natural force, making the shattering of the window an involuntary consequence of external compulsion, not a deliberate act by David.