Crayton v. Larabee

• Decision Date: 01 May 1917
• Citation: 220 N.Y. 493,116 N.E. 355
• Parties: CRAYTON v. LARABEE et al.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

220 N.Y. 493

116 N.E. 355

CRAYTON

v.LARABEE et al.

Court of Appeals of New York.

May 1, 1917.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth Department.

Action by Mary A. Crayton against George E. Larabee and others. From a judgment of the Appellate Division (162 App. Div. 934,147 N. Y. Supp. 1105) affirming a judgment on a verdict in favor of plaintiff, defendants appeal. Reversed, and new trial granted.D. Raymond Cobb, of Syracuse, for appellants.

D. Francis Searle, of Rome, for respondent.

COLLIN, J.

The action is to recover the damages sustained by reason of an alleged unlawful restraint or quarantine of the plaintiff within her home at Syracuse, N. Y. The judgment in favor of the plaintiff, consequent upon a verdict, was affirmed by the nonunanimous decision of the Appellate Division. The appellants present to us exceptions to the refusal of the trial court to grant them a nonsuit at the close of the evidence and to parts of the charge to the jury.

[1] The cardinal facts upon which the appellants rely are, in effect, undisputed. At the times involved, the defendant Hessler was the commissioner of public safety of the city of Syracuse; the defendant Maloney, the health inspector in the department of public safety; the defendant Totman, the health officer; and the defendant Larabee, a policeman assigned to assist the health officer. In July, 1911, a woman living in a house adjoining that in which the plaintiff lived was ill with smallpox. The health officer, with the aid of the other defendants, thereupon quarantined for the period from July 14 to July 29, 1911, the house of plaintiff and within it herself and the other occupants of the house. The claim of the appellants is that the trial court ruled, and erred therein, throughout the trial that the quarantine was wrongful unless the plaintiff had been, in fact, exposed to the disease,and that the existence of a reasonable ground or cause for the judgment of the health officer, if it existed, that the public health required the quarantine did not relieve him and the defendants fulfilling his orders from liability to the plaintiff. The Appellate Division held, and the plaintiff urges, that the claim of the appellants was not raised at the trial. We have decided that it was so raised.

The complaint alleges two causes of action. The first cause is constituted of the facts that the defendants wrongfully imprisoned the plaintiff at her home and advertised that she had, or had been exposed to, a loathsome disease, was unfit to be at large or pursue her occupation, and thereby deprived her of her earnings, injured her feelings, held her up to ridicule, and caused her to be shunned by her fellow citizens. The second cause of action is constituted of the same facts and the further facts that the defendants did the acts stated without any probable or reasonable cause, and ‘said plaintiff never had said disease and never had been exposed to said disease and there was no reasonable or probable grounds for the defendants' action in the premises.’ The answer contains a general denial. Obviously, the issue of the good faith and the existence of reasonable grounds for the judgment of the appellants was raised by the pleadings. A statute pertinent to the issue provided:

‘Every such local board of health shall guard against the introduction of such infectious and contagious or communicable diseases as are designated by the state department of health, by the exercise of proper and vigilant medical inspection and control of all persons and things infected with or exposed to such diseases, and provide suitable places for the treatment and care of sick persons who cannot otherwise be provided for. It shall prohibit and prevent all intercourse and communication with or use of infected premises, places and things, and require, and if necessary, provide the means for the thorough purification and cleansing of the same before general intercourse with the same or use thereof shall be allowed. * * *’ Public Health Law (Cons. Laws, c. 45) § 25.

At the trial the plaintiff's counsel, evidently adopting the statute as the sole authority for, and the test of the lawfulness of, the acts of the defendants, presented evidence of the quarantine by the defendants and the resulting damages to plaintiff, and that the plaintiff had not been ‘infected with or exposed to’ the disease. The defendants presented evidence:

Of their official capacities and the provisions of the ordinances of the city of Syracuse declaring smallpox an infectious or contagious disease and the general official powers and duties of the defendants, as follows: ‘Isolation.-All communication with any house or family infected with scarlet fever, smallpox or diphtheria and such other diseases as may be declared at any time by the commissioner dangerous or a menace to public health, is hereby forbidden except to physicians, nurses or messengers, to carry necessary advice, medicine and provisions and to such other persons as may be necessary to render aid within said house, for the support or assistance of said family. The health officer shall order isolation or absolute quarantine in such cases or wherever he deems necessary, and take such other quarantine measures as he deems necessary in cases not above provided for.’ Of the conditions which tended to prove that the plaintiff had been, and they had reasonable and adequate cause to deem she had been, exposed to the disease and in such manner that the quarantine of her within her house, as established, was necessary for the health and safety of the public.

At the close of the evidence, the defendants moved for a nonsuit and dismissal of the complaint upon several grounds. The fourth ground is alone relevant to the phase under consideration, and is:

‘Fourth, that the provisions of the Public Health Law of the state are not solely applicable here, because the Legislature by special enactment as to second class cities has modified the Public Health Law and given the common council power to adopt ordinances in relation to the public health of any second class city; that the common council of the city of Syracuse has accepted the delegation of power and has acted, and has clothed the health officer with wide powers, using in the ordinance the following language, ‘The health officer shall order isolation or absolute quarantine in such cases or wherever he deems necessary,’ and take such other measures as he deems necessary in cases not otherwise provided for. Further, that the evidence shows in this case that the health officer acted in the premises entirely in accordance with the discretion and authority with which he was clothed.'

The motion was denied, with an exception to the defendants.

The court charged:

‘* * * We have to construe reasonably the statutes and the ordinances conferring those powers upon the board the board of health. Therefore when the ordinance of the city of Syracuse says that the health officer may, whenever he deems it necessary, quarantine a person or persons, we must hold that language to mean this: That he may quarantine such person or persons whenever he ought reasonably to deem it necessary; whenever there is reasonable cause for such quarantine; whenever the necessity is a reasonable necessity. And that means this: That the board of health or the health officer may quarantine a person suffering from an infectious disease or a person who has been exposed to an infectious disease in such way that he or she is liable to take it herself or to convey it to others. Now that is the power which the health officer and the board of health of this city have under the statute and under the ordinances of the city. He and they may quarantine a person suffering from an infectious disease or a person who has been exposed to such an infectious disease in such a manner that he or she is liable to take it himself or herself, or is liable to convey the disease to others. And that is the limit and extent of the powers which the board of health and the health officer have in regard to infectious diseases and the quarantining of persons...