California Penal Code Section 273.5

Section 273.5 provides that any person who willfully inflicts upon a cohabitant "corporal injury resulting in a traumatic condition, is guilty of a felony." ( 273.5, subd. (a).) Willful infliction of corporal injury requires that the physical force used result in a traumatic condition. Traumatic condition is defined as "a condition of the body, such as a wound or external or internal injury, whether of a minor or serious nature." ( 273.5, subd. (c).) A bruise is a traumatic condition. However, there must also be injury, such as pain, soreness, tenderness, or emotional upset. (People v. Beasley (2003) 105 Cal.App.4th 1078, 1085; People v. Abrego (1993) 21 Cal.App.4th 133, 137-138.) A battery is "any willful and unlawful use of force or violence upon the person of another." ( 242.) Battery against a cohabitant is a lesser necessarily included offense to infliction of corporal injury to a cohabitant. ( 243, subd. (e)(1), 273.5; People v. Hamlin (2009) 170 Cal.App.4th 1412, 1457.) In criminal cases, even in the absence of a request, the trial court must instruct on the general principles of law relevant to the issues raised by the evidence. The court must give an instruction on a lesser included offense when there is substantial evidence raising a question as to whether all of the elements of the charged offense are present, and when there is substantial evidence the defendant committed the lesser included offense. (People v. Edwards (1985) 39 Cal.3d 107, 117; People v. Cook (2006) 39 Cal.4th 566, 596 (Cook).) The trial court must instruct on the lesser included offense only when the evidence of the lesser offense is substantial enough that a reasonable jury could conclude that the lesser offense, rather than the greater offense, was committed. (People v. Garcia (2008) 162 Cal.App.4th 18, 24.) We review de novo whether the trial court erred in failing to instruct on a lesser included offense. (Cook, supra, 39 Cal.4th at p. 596.)