Barth v. Flad
| Decision Date | 25 March 1965 |
| Docket Number | No. 10666,10666 |
| Citation | 208 A.2d 533,99 R.I. 446 |
| Parties | Wilbur E. BARTH v. Theodore H. FLAD. Ex. |
| Court | Rhode Island Supreme Court |
Pontarelli & Berberian, Aram K. Berberian, Providence, for plaintiff.
William E. McCabe, Vincent A. Ragosta, Providence, for defendant.
This action of trespass for false imprisonment and for assault and battery is in this court on the plaintiff's exceptions to the superior court's decision for the defendant and to rulings permitting him to file special pleas out of time.
In the declaration plaintiff alleges that at about 11:30 in the evening of June 3, 1962 he was accosted by defendant on Empire street in the city of Providence, was violently assaulted by him, and then placed under arrest and imprisoned. To these allegations defendant pleaded the general issue and set out on the face of said plea his reservation of 'the right to file additional pleas.'
The defendant thereafter moved for permission to file certain pleas out of time, the court granting these motions over the objection of plaintiff. It being well settled in this jurisdiction that the matter of filing pleas out of time is within the sound discretion of the court, Durepo v. Watson, 75 R.I. 51, 63 A.2d 570, and it not appearing that the court in so acting abused its discretion, we perceive no error in these rulings.
We are of the opinion, however, that in the state of the pleadings, under defendant's plea of the general issue, evidence was admissible on the basic question of whether defendant had restrained plaintiff without legal authority. The essential element of false imprisonment is the restraint of another person without legal justification. Mailey v. Estate of DePasquale, 94 R.I. 31, 177 A.2d 376. The plaintiff appears to have conceded this at the opening of trial when, during a discussion as to whether issue had been joined, he said:
The plaintiff alleged that at the time laid in his declaration defendant 'thereupon arrested and imprisoned the plaintiff against the plaintiff's will for a long period of time.' The obvious intendment of the allegation is that the detention of plaintiff was unlawful in limine because it was a consequence of an arrest unlawful for want of probable cause. We are persuaded that this is the cause of action plaintiff set out in his declaration and to which defendant's plea of the general issue was directed. In Hill v. Wyrosdick, 216 Ala. 235, at page 237, 113 So. 49, at page 50, the court said: 'The complaint charging in effect that the imprisonment was unlawful and by a public officer, evidence of a lawful arrest for probable cause was admissible under the general issue * * *.' See also Adair v. Williams, 24 Ariz. 422, 210 P. 853, 26 A.L.R. 278.
The trial justice found for defendant on the ground that his custody of plaintiff was a temporary detention authorized by the provisions of G.L.1956, § 12-7-1. He appears to have concluded that the manner in which plaintiff operated his motor vehicle gave rise to reasonable ground for the officer to suspect that he had committed or was committing a crime and, therefore, was entitled to detain plaintiff for a sufficient period of time, not exceeding two hours, to ascertain his identity and his business abroad. We are inclined, however, to agree with plaintiff's contention that his apprehension by defendant was in fact an arrest and that it must be justified, if at all, under the provisions of § 12-7-3, which relate to authority to arrest for misdemeanor without a warrant.
It is therein provided that a peace officer may without a warrant arrest a person when '(a) The officer has reasonable ground to believe that a misdemeanor has been or is being committed in his presence and that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing it.' We are of the opinion that the legislature, in using the phrase 'reasonable ground to believe,' intended to authorize an arrest for the commission of a misdemeanor when the officer had probable cause for so doing. This is simply to construe the statutory provision pertinent here in a manner consistent with constitutional requirements.
The reasonable ground, that is, probable cause for the arrest, must exist at the time the arrest is made, and it is settled that if unlawfully made it cannot be validated by subsequent events or disclosures. It is equally true that an arrest lawfully made cannot be made unlawful by such subsequent events. In Henry v. United States, 361 U.S. 98, 80 S.Ct. 168, 4 L.Ed.2d 134, the court, in disclosing the anatomy of probable cause, made clear the requirement that it be contemporaneous with the arrest. At page 102, 80 S.Ct. at page 171 it was said: ...
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