Canadian Pac. Ry. Co. v. Black

• Decision Date: 11 January 1916
• Docket Number: 84.
• Citation: 230 F. 798
• Parties: CANADIAN PAC. RY. CO. v. BLACK.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

230 F. 798

CANADIAN PAC. RY. CO. v. BLACK.

No. 84.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

January 11, 1916

This cause comes here upon writ of error to review a judgment of the District Court, Western District of New York, in favor of defendant in error, who was plaintiff below. The action was brought to recover damages for false arrest and malicious prosecution. Plaintiff was a station agent in the employ of defendant at Wycliff, British Columbia. There was no one else at the station; plaintiff having full charge thereof including the billing out and receiving of freight, the sale of tickets, the handling of baggage, etc. An auditor of the defendant, one Phillips, reported a shortage in his accounts. Thereupon a warrant was obtained for his arrest from a court of British Columbia, and a special officer of the defendant had plaintiff arrested in Buffalo and held for extradition. Upon promises made by Cadieux, the special agent, plaintiff waived all opposition to extradition and voluntarily crossed the border into Canada, when he was at once, contrary to the promises, placed under close arrest and taken to the court in British Columbia, to be tried for grand larceny. When the case came on for trial, the judge dismissed it on the showing of the crown, and there was not even any necessity of calling Black to the stand. The traveling auditor admitted in substance to the judge that a mistake had been made and that there was no case.

Clinton Clinton & Striker, of Buffalo, N.Y. (G. Clinton, Jr., of Buffalo, N.Y., of counsel), for plaintiff in error.

Sullivan Bagley & Wechter, of Buffalo, N.Y. (J. A. Wechter, of Buffalo, N.Y., of counsel), for defendant in error.

Before LACOMBE, COXE, and ROGERS, Circuit Judges.

LACOMBE Circuit Judge.

The trial judge instructed the jury that actual malice had not been shown and the sole issues submitted to the jury were: Did plaintiff establish lack of probable cause? If so, does the jury find malice in law? What, if any, actual damages did plaintiff sustain?

We have rarely had before us a case where the testimony adduced to show probable cause was so flimsy and unpersuasive, or where the circumstances attending the prosecution of the unfortunate plaintiff were characterized by such gross breach of faith and such humiliating and unnecessary brutality.

Fortunately we are spared the trouble of incorporating any digest of the testimony in our opinion. Upon the denial of a motion to set aside the verdict Judge Mayer reviewed the whole testimony exhaustively. His opinion will be found in 218 F. 239. No one reading it will be surprised that the jury assessed $25,000 as compensatory damages. All we have to do is to pass upon the points presented on this writ of error. They are three in number:

1. That the court erred in leaving to the jury the question whether or not plaintiff had shown absence of probable cause. It is argued that there is no substantial controversy on the facts relevant to 'probable cause,' and therefore according to the authorities cited, the court should have determined that question itself. It is a sufficient answer to this assignment of error to say that the undisputed facts conclusively establish the proposition as a matter of law that there was no probable cause. Indeed, the trial judge himself so held when motion to dismiss was made at the end of plaintiff's case,...