Clyma v. Kennedy

• Decision Date: 16 May 1894
• Citation: 29 A. 539,64 Conn. 310
• Parties: CLYMA v. KENNEDY et al.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

29 A. 539

64 Conn. 310

CLYMA

v. KENNEDY et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

May 16, 1894.

Appeal from district court of Waterbury; Root, Judge.

Action by Edmund R. Clyma against William Kennedy and others for false imprisonment Judgment for plaintiff against the defendants other than Clancy, and they appeal. Reversed in part.

The facts on which the complaint was based were as follows: Plaintiff was brought before John H. Turtle, a justice of the peace, on a warrant issued by him, on the complaint of Thomas Clancy, a grand juror, charging him with criminal libel of said Tuttle. He was found guilty by the justice, and was arrested and imprisoned on a mittimus, drawn by Kennedy, at the request of the justice, which erroneously stated the ground of commitment as a conviction for contempt of court.

George E. Terry, for appellants. Henry C. Baldwin and Robert E. Hall, for appellee.

ANDREWS, C. J. We think the district court erred in holding that Justice Tuttle was disqualified to hear and determine the grand juror's complaint for libel, by reason of interest it was doubtless indecorous and unwise for him to try the case, because it exposed him to the appearance of seeking to revenge an insult to himself. There is no statute by the terms of which he was forbidden to act in the case, and we are not able to see that he had any such interest in it as made his action void. He was not a party to the cause. He had no pecuniary interest in the subject-matter of the action. It was not his own cause. He was not the moving party. He was not liable for costs, nor was it possible for him to recover any thing by any judgment which might be rendered. The event of the proceeding could not bring him gain, nor subject him to any loss. The fees which he might receive do not constitute an interest in the proceedings. Com. v. Keenan, 97 Mass. 589. Justice Tuttle had no interest in the cause other than such as he had as a citizen,—as one of the public. The interest in a cause which of itself disqualifies a judge from acting therein is a pecuniary one, similar to the interest which a party in a civil action has in it All the cases, ancient and recent, are to this effect Dr. Bonham's Case, 8 Coke, 107a, was an action brought by Thomas Bonham against George Turner and others for a false imprisonment. The defendants pleaded in bar the charter of the "College or Commonalty of the Faculty of Physic in London," by which it appeared that certain pery sons, called the "censors" of that college, might summon before themselves any one who practiced physic, for examination, and, on finding such person to be unskillful in such practice, impose a fine upon him, one moiety of which was to be paid to themselves; and alleged that the plaintiff had been so summoned and examined, and had been ordered to pay a fine of 100 shillings, and that for the nonpayment of fine he had been arrested and imprisoned. Upon this plea the case says (page 118a): "The censors cannot be judges, ministers, and parties, —judges to give sentence or judgment; ministers to make summons; and parties to have the moiety of the forfeiture. 'Quia aliquis non debet esse judex in propria causa, imo iniquum est aliquem suae rei esse judicem.'" Day v. Savadge, Hob. 85, 87, is of the same kind. These are the oldest cases found in the books. Recent ones are Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch, 87, 133; Taylor v. Porter, 4 Hill, 146; Doolittle v. Clark, 47 Conn. 316; Parrott v. Railroad Co., 47 Conn. 575; Dyer v. Smith, 12 Conn. 384. The case most strongly pressed by the plaintiff was Schroder v. Ehlers, 31 N. J. Law, 44. A statute of that state provided that certain trespasses to lands might be punished by a fine which went to the owner of the land. The defendant in the case was a...