Drill Parts and Service Co., Inc. v. Joy Mfg. Co.

• Decision Date: 08 January 1993
• Citation: 619 So.2d 1280
• Parties: DRILL PARTS AND SERVICE COMPANY, INC., and Carlton Montgomery v. JOY MANUFACTURING COMPANY, et al. 1911102.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 1280

619 So.2d 1280

DRILL PARTS AND SERVICE COMPANY, INC., and Carlton Montgomery v. JOY MANUFACTURING COMPANY, et al.

1911102.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

Jan. 8, 1993.

Rehearing Denied April 9, 1993.

Charles Cleveland of Cleveland & Cleveland, P.C., and Frederick A. Erben of Beddow, Erben & Bowen, P.A., Birmingham, for appellants.

Jasper P. Juliano and David A. Lee of Parsons, Lee & Juliano, P.C., Birmingham, for appellees.

HORNSBY, Chief Justice.

On February 18, 1983, Drill Parts and Service Company, Inc. ("Drill Parts"), and Carlton Montgomery sued Joy Manufacturing Company ("Joy"), Donald Earl Giles, Legal Services Detective Agency ("Legal Services"), Richard Gianetti, and Michael Jenkins, alleging false imprisonment, trespass, abuse of process, defamation, and conspiracy. The defendants moved for a summary judgment. On March 11, 1992, the trial court entered a summary judgment for the defendants as to all claims. The plaintiffs appeal. We affirm.

Before relating the facts, we note that "[i]n reviewing the disposition of a motion for summary judgment, we utilize the same standard as the trial court in determining whether the evidence before [it] made out a genuine issue of material fact" and whether the defendant was "entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Bussey v. John Deere Co., 531 So.2d 860, 862 (Ala.1988); Rule 56(c), Ala.R.Civ.P. Because the plaintiffs commenced this action before June 11, 1987, the applicable standard for testing a summary judgment motion is the "scintilla rule." Ala.Code 1975, § 12-21-12. Under that standard, when the movant has made a prima facie showing, by admissible evidence, that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that the movant is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law, the party opposing the summary judgment motion need only produce a scintilla of evidence establishing the existence of a genuine issue of material fact. If the nonmovant carries this burden, the trial court must deny the motion for summary judgment. Kimbrel v. Mercedes-Benz Credit Corp., 476 So.2d 94 (Ala.1985); see Rule 56(c), Ala.R.Civ.P., and comments thereto. Our review is further subject to the caveat that this Court must review the record in a light most favorable to the nonmovant, resolving all reasonable doubts against the movant. Hanners v. Balfour Guthrie, Inc., 564 So.2d 412, 413 (Ala.1990).

Joy manufactures "Robbins Drills," rotary drills used primarily in the mining and construction industries to drill holes for explosives. It acquired the right to manufacture Robbins Drills in 1971 from Robbins Machinery Company, Inc. ("Robbins"). Approximately 40 percent of the replacement parts for Robbins Drills are custom designed and manufactured to fit the drills. Joy manufactures some of these custom-designed parts itself and it subcontracts with independent machine shops for the manufacture of some parts. Joy's engineers calculate the configurations, dimensions, materials, tolerances, and other specifications for each part and record this information on an engineering drawing. Joy places its logo on each engineering drawing, and it contends that these drawings are its trade secrets. Although the parties in this action dispute the adequacy of the security measures Joy uses to protect its drawings from use by competitors, this Court has already reviewed the evidence pertaining to Joy's protective measures in Drill Parts & Service Co. v. Joy Manufacturing Co., 439 So.2d 43 (Ala.1983) (hereinafter Drill Parts I ). In that case we held that there was sufficient evidence from which the trial court could find that Joy's drawings constituted trade secrets. Id. at 45-47, 49-50.

The plaintiff Carlton Montgomery worked first for Robbins and thereafter for Joy, until 1977, when he left Joy to form Drill Parts, a company designed to compete with Joy in servicing and selling replacement parts for mining and construction equipment, including Robbins Drills. The plaintiffs admit that Montgomery obtained several hundred copies of Joy's engineering drawings and used them to manufacture parts for Robbins Drills. However, they claim he violated no criminal law in obtaining these drawings.

In August 1982, Joy's vice president, Donald Giles, received an anonymous tip informing him that a former Joy employee had stolen copies of Joy's engineering drawings. This tip prompted Joy to hire Legal Services, a private detective agency owned by Richard Gianetti, to investigate several of Joy's competitors. In September 1982, Gianetti contacted Sergeant Dennis Blass of the "Leviticus Project Association," a United States Department of Justice investigation into crime in the coal industry. Gianetti, Giles, and Blass met to discuss the possibility of criminally prosecuting any of Joy's competitors in possession of Joy's drawings. Although the parties to this action dispute the details and the significance of this meeting, as a result of it Blass commenced a criminal investigation of Montgomery and Drill Parts.

Blass made several telephone calls to Montgomery, posing as a "locator" from Fort Collins, Colorado, trying to find replacement parts for Robbins Drills on behalf of a client in Mexico. Ultimately, Montgomery agreed to sell Blass a set of 65 engineering drawings for $18,000 in cash. On October 18, 1982, the day before the exchange took place, Blass and Gianetti, without Montgomery's knowledge, inspected Drill Parts' warehouse, through an open door. They claim to have seen in the warehouse at that time several copies of engineering drawings bearing Joy's logo. Around 9:00 p.m. the same day, Blass and Gianetti went to Judge Jack Montgomery's home and secured from him a warrant authorizing a general search of Drill Parts' premises and a seizure of any documents belonging to Joy.

On October 19, 1982, before Blass met Montgomery, Blass met with a Jefferson County deputy sheriff and several officers from the Birmingham Police Department and instructed them in executing the search warrant at Drill Parts. At 9:00 a.m. Blass met Montgomery in the lobby of the Airport Holiday Inn in Birmingham and took him to room 212. Montgomery then sold Blass copies of Joy's engineering drawings, and Blass arrested him for theft of property. Police officers located in room 210 listened to the transaction between Blass and Montgomery and assisted Blass with Montgomery's arrest. Gianetti was also present in room 210, as was a reporter from the Birmingham News, Nancy Campbell.

Following his arrest, Montgomery was taken to jail, fingerprinted, and photographed. He was released from custody that afternoon. He has never been criminally prosecuted for his possession of Joy's engineering drawings. Montgomery alleges that the defendants caused his arrest and that Blass did not have probable cause to arrest him. Therefore, he says, the defendants are liable for falsely imprisoning him.

At about 12:00 noon on October 19, 1982, shortly after Montgomery's arrest, police officers executed the search warrant against Drill Parts. Giles and Michael Jenkins, a private investigator employed by Legal Services, assisted the officers in examining file cabinets, desks, and bookshelves on Drill Parts' premises. The officers seized several copies of Joy's engineering drawings and two hardware books containing the serial numbers for Joy's custom designed parts. The plaintiffs claim that Giles and Jenkins trespassed on Drill Parts' premises, not only because, they say, the officers executing the search warrant had not requested Giles and Jenkins's assistance, but also because, they say, Judge Montgomery lacked probable cause for issuing a search warrant.

The plaintiffs further allege that the defendants knew, or should have known because of what they refer to as Joy's inadequate protective measures, that the plaintiffs had violated no criminal law in obtaining copies of Joy's engineering drawings and, they further allege, the defendants, despite their knowledge, caused Judge Montgomery to issue a search warrant against Drill Parts by willfully misrepresenting to Blass and Judge Montgomery that the defendants had violated a criminal law. The plaintiffs claim that the defendants used the criminal search warrant to gather information to use in a civil trial against Drill Parts. ¹ Therefore, the plaintiffs contend that the defendants are liable for abuse of process.

On October 20, 1982, November 5, 1982, and January 30, 1983, the Birmingham News published articles about Montgomery's arrest, his possible theft indictment, and the search of Drill Parts' premises. The Birmingham Post-Herald also published an article on October 21, 1982, about Montgomery's arrest. The plaintiffs claim that all of these articles were defamatory per se.

I. False Imprisonment

First, the plaintiffs argue that the summary judgment for the defendants was improper as to the false imprisonment claim, because, they say, the defendants caused Montgomery's arrest and the arrest was unlawful because Blass had not complied with either § 15-10-3 or -4, Ala.Code 1975.

"False imprisonment consists of the unlawful detention of the person of another for any length of time whereby he is deprived of his liberty." Ala.Code 1975, § 6-5-170. Section 15-10-4 lists the procedural requirements for a warrantless arrest. It provides, in part: "When arresting a person without a warrant, the officer must inform [the arrestee] of his authority and the cause of arrest, except when the person is arrested in the actual commission of a public offense or on pursuit." Ala.Code 1975, § 15-10-4 (emphasis added). The defendants admit that, because Blass was operating undercover, he did not inform Montgomery that he was a police officer. However, the defendants argue that Montgomery's arrest was within the exception to § 15-10-4, for arrests made during the actual commission of an offense. Because the defendants made a prima facie showing that Blass arrested Montgomery because Blass believed that...