Catlett v. Chestnut
| Decision Date | 27 February 1933 |
| Citation | 108 Fla. 475,146 So. 547 |
| Parties | CATLETT v. CHESTNUT et al. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
En Banc.
Error to Circuit Court, Duval County; George William Jackson Judge.
Action by Addie Irene Catlett against Charles H. Chestnut individually and as executor of the last will of B. S Catlett, deceased, and others. To review a judgment in favor of defendants, plaintiff brings error.
Affirmed.
COUNSEL W. M. Toomer and Charles A. Powers, both of Jacksonville, for plaintiff in error.
Knight & Frazier, Knight, Adair, Cooper & Osborne, A. W. Cockrell Jr., and O. O. McCollum, all of Jacksonville, for defendants in error.
The plaintiff sued the defendants, jointly and severally, for damages in an action on the case for alleged maliciously conspiring with each other to defeat, detain, and cause to be withheld, the setting apart of plaintiff's asserted dower in the estate of one B. S. Catlett, deceased. The ad damunm was for general damages in the sum of $175,000. No special damages were alleged. Demurrers to the plaintiff's amended declaration were sustained and writ of error was thereafter taken to the judgment thereon rendered in defendants' favor.
The record shows that one of the defendants, De Witt T. Gray, was sued with respect to certain things alleged to have been done by him as circuit judge in the course of making final disposition of the case of Catlett v. Chestnut, in which case Judge Gray denied a jury trial to plaintiff. His ruling was reversed on appellate proceedings had in this court. See Catlett v. Chestnut, 100 Fla. 1146, 131 So. 120. [1] In general the plaintiff attempted to set up in the declaration alleged 'obstructions to justice' and the joint effort of the defendants to 'prevent the due administration of the laws' in connection with judicial proceedings brought and pending in the circuit court seeking to establish plaintiff's right to dower, as well as the allotment of it. The fact that, at the time this suit was brought, the plaintiff's suit with respect to her claim for dower had not been finally terminated in her favor, is not made to appear directly, but is inferentially disclosed by the declaration.
It is sufficient to say, in affirming the judgment rendered in the present case, that the cited authority of Garsed v. Sugarman, 99 Fla. 191, 126 So. 157, [2] affords no basis for a suit like this against a circuit judge and others connected with pending litigation brought during the pendency of the suit, and attempted to be maintained while the legal controversy concerning plaintiff's rights is yet not finally adjudicated.
Public policy, and the safe administration of justice, require that circuit judges, witnesses, and parties to pending legal controversies, be privileged against any restraint sought to be imposed upon them by suits for damages brought against them for alleged conspiracies charged against them concerning the subject-matter of pending litigation, the effect of the trial of which actions for conspiracy will simply amount to a collateral retrial of the plaintiff's pretended rights which it is alleged were intended, by means of the asserted conspiracy, to be defeated.
The foregoing rule is a necessary corollary to be deduced from the adjudicated cases in which it has been uniformly held, by both the English and American courts, that an action at law for damages, against an adversary party or his witnesses, for allegedly procuring a verdict and judgment by fraud or perjury, cannot be maintained while such verdict and judgment remain in force. Dunlap v. Glidden, 31 Me. 435, 52 Am. Dec. 625; Stevens v. Rowe, 59 N.H. 578, 47 Am. Rep. 231; Lyford v. Demerritt, 32 N.H. 234; Nicholson v. Nicholson, 113 Ind. 131, 15 N.E. 223.
Where the gravamen of an action is an asserted right to recover for damages done by a plaintiff's wrongful and malicious prosecution of a civil suit, without probable cause, for the purpose of oppressing the defendant, the suit is not to be considered false unless it has been defeated, or it is made to appear that it was deliverately brought for a larger sum that was known to be due, for the purpose of oppressing the defendant. Savage v. Brewer, 16 Pick. (Mass.) 453 28 Am. Dec. 255. Therefore while a judgment in such cases remains unreversed, it is conclusive upon the parties in every respect, and cannot be...
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...high a nature that it concerns all mankind to have it punished, which could not be done in an action on the case.' In Catlett v. Chestnut et al., 108 Fla. 475, 146 So. 547, we recognized this principle, saying (page 'Public policy, and the safe administration of justice, require that circui......
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