Cross v. Kent

• Decision Date: 23 June 1870
• Parties: TRUEMAN CROSS v. MARY A. S. KENT.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

32 Md. 581

TRUEMAN CROSS v. MARY A. S. KENT.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

June 23, 1870

APPEAL from the Circuit Court for Prince George's County.

The cause was argued before BARTOL, C.J., STEWART, BRENT, MILLER ALVEY and ROBINSON, J.

Alexander B. Hagner, for the appellant.

Daniel Clarke, for the appellee.

MILLER J., delivered the opinion of the Court.

The appellant was sued by the appellee in an action of trespass for setting fire to and burning her barn. The defendant appeared by attorney, and pleaded not guilty. By consent of parties, the case was submitted to and tried before the Court without the intervention of a jury. The plaintiff offered evidence, tending to show the act complained of was committed by the defendant, either by design or accident, and that the value of the barn destroyed was from $700 to $800. Proof was offered on the part of the defendant, that at the time of the trespass, he was, and for many years before and from his infancy, had been an idiot and insane person; that he had no committee, and had not been found a lunatic under a commission de lunatico inquirendo, but was harmless and inoffensive, and was in the habit of travelling about the country, paying visits to a former overseer of his father's farm. Upon the issues joined, the Court found the defendant did commit the wrong complained of, and gave judgment in favor of the plaintiff for $700. At the trial three prayers were offered on the part of the defendant, to the rejection of which an exception was taken. Of these, the first asserts that the idiocy of the defendant, if found by the Court, is a bar to the action; the second, that such idiocy or insanity is evidence in mitigation of damages; and the third, that if the Court found the burning was the result of accident, and not the intentional or deliberate act of the defendant, such accidental burning, if not a bar to the action, is, nevertheless, a mitigation of the damages claimed by the plaintiff.

The distinction between the liability of a lunatic or insane person in civil actions for torts committed by him, and in criminal prosecutions, is well defined, and it has always been held, and upon sound reason, that though not punishable criminally, he is liable to a civil action for any tort he may commit. 1 Chitty's Pl., 76; 3 Bac. Abr., 536, title Idiots and Lunatics, E. The only proof on the subject of damages was the value of the property destroyed, and the judgment was for the lowest estimate of such value. If the defendant was liable at all, the damages could not be reduced below this either by proof of lunacy or that the burning was the result of accident. Punitory or vindictive damages do not appear to have been claimed, and certainly were not allowed. Both prayers on this subject were erroneous in not defining what damages, whether compensatory or punitive, the supposed facts were evidence to mitigate. The former could not be mitigated by such evidence, and the prayers do not say the evidence should be applied to the latter. There was no error, therefore, in rejecting them.

These propositions were not strenuously controverted in argument but the appellant's counsel has contended that the only evidence worthy of notice to show the act was...