Curry v. Giant Food Co. of D.C., 83-460.
| Decision Date | 30 March 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. 83-460.,83-460. |
| Citation | 522 A.2d 1283 |
| Parties | Oliver E. CURRY, et al., Appellants, v. GIANT FOOD COMPANY OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, et al., Appellees. |
| Court | D.C. Court of Appeals |
Robert Cadeaux, Washington, D.C., for appellants.
Edward J. Lopata, with whom David P. Durbin and Kathy S. Tyson, Washington, D.C., were on the brief, for appellees.
William Carter, Washington, D.C., also filed an appearance.
Before FERREN and TERRY, Associate Judges, and REILLY, Senior Judge.
This is an appeal from a judgment for the defendants in an action brought by Oliver Curry (appellant) in which he sought to recover damages from Giant Food and four of its security personnel for what he asserted was an unlawful arrest and assault for attempted shoplifting. According to his three-count complaint, the conduct of the individual defendants, viz., Shirley Cumberlander, Karl DeVaughn, Alexander Belton, and Louis Moses, and their employer, amounted to the commission of three distinct wrongful acts: (1) assault and battery, (2) slander, and (3) false arrest and imprisonment. Curry's action was joined by his wife, who claimed damages for loss of consortium.
After a five-day trial, the court directed verdicts for the defendants on the allegations of slander and loss of consortium. In a series of special verdicts, the jury found for the defendants, except Belton on the assault and battery charges. On the battery count, appellant was awarded $1,800 in compensatory damages (the judgment entered this sum against the corporate defendant) and one dollar in punitive damages against defendant Belton. None of the parties has appealed the judgment against Giant on the battery count, but appellant has assigned as error not only the directed verdicts, but a number of evidentiary rulings and instructions.1 We perceive no error and affirm.
Evidence as to what actually happened in the store is in sharp conflict. What is not in dispute is the fact that appellant, a man in late middle age (he was 58 at the time), entered a large retail outlet of the Giant Food Company located at 8th & P Streets, N.W., to have a medical prescription filled in the pharmacy section in the rear of the store, which has a separate cashier's desk. After receiving his medicine and paying for it, he then went into the grocery section of the store which occupies the bulk of the floor space and emerged from one of the lines where cashiers were checking out grocery shoppers. Before he could leave the store, he was stopped by a uniformed security guard, defendant Moses, who ushered him to a room in the back of the premises. When appellant protested, the guard told him he was "wanted in back" because he had stolen something.
The reason the guard had detained him was that he had received a radio report two or three minutes earlier from another security employee, defendant Shirley Cumberlander, who had been surveying the grocery customers from the rear of the store. The message was that she had spotted a man (whose attire she described) approach the meat counter and tuck a two pound roast under his jacket. Appellant matched this description. Receiving another radio signal, the guard then stopped him.
From this point on, the testimony is conflicting. According to Moses, when he was escorting appellant to the back of the store, the latter flipped a slab of beef to the floor as they were passing the meat counter, where it was retrieved by one of the butchers.2 After this happened, Moses took appellant through another door, and left him in the security office, a room partitioned from the customer area, with a small entrance corridor.
Cumberlander's testimony was that when appellant was brought to the office, she tried to question him after reading him "his rights." Appellant became furious and threatened her. Hearing this angry exchange, two other defendants, De-Vaughn, the security supervisor, and Belton, another security officer, came into the office. Cumberlander left and telephoned the police. According to the two other defendants, they attempted to search the detainee, but the latter lunged at De-Vaughn, who then grappled with him. In an effort to break up the struggle, Belton testified that he slapped appellant once with his nightstick, hitting his right knee. Appellant then resumed his seat. After propounding some questions, the security officers presented appellant with a release form. He refused to sign it. Soon thereafter, police officers arrived, and after hearing an account of the incident, placed appellant under arrest and took him to the police station. He was eventually arraigned and formally charged with shoplifting. A subsequent trial resulted in appellant's acquittal.
Appellant's version of the events in the detention room was quite different. He testified that without any provocation, the security officers had beaten him. He said that Belton had used his weapon not only to strike him on the knee, but had also hit him repeatedly on other parts of his body, bruising his face, breaking his teeth. He told the jury that after he had left the pharmacy section of the store, he proceeded immediately toward the front door, not pausing at any of the grocery counters or shelves on his way there. He also testified that when the guard stopped him at the front of the store and ordered appellant to accompany him to the rear, that the guard's explanation—that he had stolen something—was uttered within hearing of nearby customers.
As this summary indicates, the outcome of the case depended largely upon how the jury resolved the credibility of the witnesses. Appellant, disappointed with the verdict of the jury and the small amount of damages awarded him, contends that the trial court committed no fewer than twelve errors.
For purposes of review, we have grouped these objections as being directed at five categories of rulings, viz., (1) instructions on law of liability, (2) refusals to grant mistrial, (3) exclusions of evidence, (4) directions bearing on measure of damages and (5) directed verdicts, and shall consider these seriatim.
Appellant contends that the trial court improperly charged the jury on liability for false arrest/false imprisonment,3 claiming the following instruction was erroneous: In this regard, I instruct you that defendant Cumberlander is not liable for false arrest and imprisonment with respect to the initial detention simply because you find she was in fact, mistaken about the plaintiff. (Emphasis added.)
Appellant asserts that the "simply . . . mistaken" language of the instruction does not accurately charge the jury on the law which requires that the arresting officer possesses a good faith and reasonable belief that his conduct is lawful. See Henderson v. District of Columbia, 493 A.2d 982, 994 (D.C. 1985) (citing Wade v. District of Columbia, 310 A.2d 857, 862-63 (D.C. 1973)).4
Since 1884 this jurisdiction has adhered to the rule that "the court must look at the whole charge, and if they see that, in the very next paragraph, an apparent error in one part is corrected, then no injury on the whole is done" and the exception will not be sustained. Carpenter v. Washington & Georgetown R.R. Co., 14 D.C. (3 Mackey) 225, 228, aff'd, 121 U.S. 474, 7 S.Ct. 1002, 30 L.Ed. 1015 (1884). See also Airlie Foundation, Inc. v. Evening Star Newspaper Co., 337 F.Supp. 421 (1972).
In the instant case, immediately following the statement to which appellant takes exception, the court stated to the jury:
[A]s long as you find that she believed in good faith that the plaintiff had committed or was about to commit a crime, and if you find that the belief was reasonable. (Emphasis added.)
Taken as a whole, these two statements unequivocally instructed the jury that liability could be based only upon a finding of lack of good faith and reasonable belief. The words "simply . . . mistaken" in the instruction was merely an elaboration by the trial court upon the test. The court's charge did not instruct the jury to impose a lesser standard than good faith and reasonable belief. Thus, a fair reading of the full text of the court's instructions shows no error.
Appellant also claims error in the instruction that defendants were legally entitled to continue to keep Curry in custody unless they knew or were convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that further detention was unwarranted.5 He argues that the same good faith and reasonable belief standard used to determine the validity of the initial detention should control in challenges to continued detention.
At the outset, we note that there is no standard civil jury instruction regarding continued detention in false arrest claims. The source of the portion of the instruction to which appellant takes exception is RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS, § 134 comment f (1965), which provides:
f. Actor's duty to release other. If the actor, whether a private person or a police officer, has arrested another without a warrant . . . and has ascertained beyond a reasonable doubt that the suspicion upon which the privilege to arrest is based is unfounded, he is no longer privileged to keep the other in custody and must release him, unless the other indicates his desire to be taken before a court, body, or official, in order that the stigma which the other believes that the arrest has put upon him may be officially removed, or unless the other objects to his release in the belief that it will endanger his bodily security or entail expense. (Emphasis added.)
In our opinion, this provision of the RESTATEMENT correctly sets forth the standards to be applied when the lawfulness of an arrest and detention is disputed. As we have found no holding in this jurisdiction to the contrary, we deem this instruction a proper guideline for a jury to follow.
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