Alabama Co. v. Norwood

• Court: Supreme Court of Alabama
• Citation: 100 So. 479,211 Ala. 385
• Docket Number: 6 Div. 93.
• Parties: ALABAMA CO. v. NORWOOD.
• Decision Date: 24 April 1924

100 So. 479

211 Ala. 385

ALABAMA CO.
v.
NORWOOD.

6 Div. 93.

Supreme Court of Alabama

April 24, 1924

Rehearing Denied May 29, 1924. [100 So. 480]

Appeal from Circuit Court, Tuscaloosa County; Henry B. Foster, Judge.

Action for damages for false imprisonment and malicious prosecution by Lewis Norwood against the Alabama Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Transferred from Court of Appeals under Acts 1911, p. 449, § 6. Affirmed.

The charge given for plaintiff and made the basis of assignment 16 is as follows:

"The court charges the jury that, if they are reasonably satisfied from the evidence that the defendant, through its officers or agents, acting within the line and scope of their authority, maliciously and without probable cause prosecuted the plaintiff for the offense of blowing up a house, and that plaintiff was tried and discharged by a justice of the peace having jurisdiction to try the plaintiff, then plaintiff should recover."

Foster, Verner & Rice, of Tuscaloosa, for appellant.

Mathews & Mathews, of Bessemer, for appellee.

GARDNER, J.

This is an appeal from a judgment recovered by appellee against appellant in an action for false imprisonment and malicious prosecution. The suit arose out of the arrest and imprisonment of plaintiff while a strike was in progress in the vicinity of the defendant's mine. One of the houses on the defendant's property was destroyed, or partially so, by an explosion, and, following an investigation thereof, plaintiff was arrested and imprisoned. One Callahan, a deputy sheriff, was employed by defendant as a guard, and testified that when occasion demanded he had authority to arrest.

We treat the assignments of error in the order of their presentation in brief of counsel for appellant. Speaking of Callahan, and in answer to the question as to what he did upon coming to plaintiff's house, the plaintiff was permitted, over defendant's objection, to state: "Arrested me, taken me down to the company's office." This is not objectionable as being a mere conclusion of the pleader, but in the nature of a shorthand rendition of the facts, which facts were subsequently developed in the further progress of the examination of the plaintiff. The ruling of the court in this respect presents no reversible error. Hotel Tutwiler Co. v. Evans, 208 Ala. 252, 94 So. 120.

Assignments of error 3 to 10, inclusive, are argued in bulk, and, indeed, given but scant consideration in brief. Under such treatment in brief, if any one of the assignments is without merit, a consideration of others may be pretermitted. City of Montgomery v. Moon, 208 Ala. 472, 94 So. 337.

The ruling constituting the Eighth assignment of error was clearly correct in excluding a conversation between witness Hughes and Major Flowers, and needs no discussion.

The third count of the complaint was for malicious prosecution. The charge given at the plaintiff's request, constituting assignment of error number 16, may be considered in connection with assignment of error 20 which relates to the refusal of the court to give the affirmative charge as to said count upon the defendant's request. A detachment of the militia was stationed in the vicinity of this property-both at Searles and Brookwood, a few miles distant. The defense rested upon the theory that the arrest, imprisonment, and prosecution of this plaintiff was solely by the military authorities, for which it was in no way responsible. The evidence for the plaintiff tended to show that one Taylor was the general superintendent of the defendant at this particular [100 So. 481] plant at Searles, and that Callahan, a deputy sheriff, was employed by the defendant as a guard, as previously stated; that Callahan came to the house where plaintiff was living, arrested him, and carried him in an...