Burt v. Orr

• Decision Date: 10 April 1926
• Docket Number: 26,628
• Citation: 244 P. 1044,120 Kan. 719
• Parties: BILLIE BURT, Appellant, v. F. G. ORR et al., Appellees
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

244 P. 1044

120 Kan. 719

BILLIE BURT, Appellant, v. F. G. ORR et al., Appellees

No. 26,628

Supreme Court of Kansas

April 10, 1926

Decided January, 1926.

Appeal from Sedgwick district court, division No. 1; THOMAS E ELCOCK, judge.

Judgment reversed.

SYLLABUS

SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.

FALSE IMPRISONMENT--Nominal Damages--Instructions Disregarded--Passion or Prejudice. In an action by a young woman twenty-six years of age for false arrest, where there is evidence tending to show that she suffered humiliation, mortification and disgrace by reason thereof, a verdict of one dollar is so small and inadequate as to show that the jury did not give proper consideration to the instructions of the court, or were influenced by passion or prejudice.

J. W. Ward and Tom Harley, both of Wichita, for the appellant.

Charles B. Hudson and Clyde M. Hudson, both of Wichita, for the appellees.

Hopkins J. Mason, J., dissenting.

OPINION

HOPKINS, J.:

Plaintiff was mistaken for a woman by the name of Bennett who had passed a worthless check. She was arrested, and later brought this action for damages for false arrest. She recovered nominal damages only, and appeals.

Plaintiff was a woman about twenty-six years of age, was born and raised in Wichita, was by occupation a fashion model and had worked as such for some three years previous to the events narrated herein.

There was evidence tending to show these facts:

That on the afternoon of March 10, 1924, she went to the Lassen Hotel in Wichita, to keep an appointment; that she arrived at the hotel about 4 or 4:30, went through the lobby to the elevator, and as she got on the elevator Mr. Truex, one of the defendants, and Mr. Vehon, a police officer, got on the elevator with her; that she got off at the mezzanine floor; Truex and Vehon got off with her; she was detained there for some time, questioned by Truex, Vehon and Mr. Halleck, another defendant; that Mr. Truex, who was a clerk and agent of defendant Orr, grabbed her hand and examined her rings. She was compelled to write the names of Miss Margaret Woods and Mrs. Bennett, then taken from the mezzanine floor of the hotel with Vehon, Truex and Halleck down through the lobby of the hotel to Market street, thence on Market street, one of the principal streets of the city, a distance of two and one-half blocks to the city jail, to the office of Mr. Zickefoose, chief of detectives, where she was detained for perhaps thirty minutes, then permitted to go, upon giving to Mr. Zickefoose her name, address and phone number; that since her arrest and up to the time of trial she had been unable to get employment in her profession except for four days only, two at Hutchinson and two at the Lassen Hotel. She testified that she had sought employment since her arrest, but had been unable to secure it (except as stated); she was told "they could not use her"; that many people who knew her had asked about her being arrested charged with crime. In fact almost everybody she knows and meets asks her about it. The jury found for the plaintiff and fixed the amount of her recovery at one dollar, or nominal damages. Motion for new trial was overruled, and she appeals, contending that the jury, in arriving at its verdict, failed to take into consideration the instructions of the court. The instruction to which reference is particularly made reads:

"You are further instructed that if you should find plaintiff is entitled to recover, the measure of her recovery in addition to the limitations heretofore noted will be as follows: You may consider the mental suffering, if any, caused to plaintiff; also any sense of shame, mortification or humiliation suffered by her on...