Finley v. St. Louis Refrigerator Co.

• Decision Date: 24 February 1890
• Parties: FINLEY v. ST. LOUIS REFRIGERATOR CO. et al.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

13 S.W. 87

99 Mo. 559

FINLEY v. ST. LOUIS REFRIGERATOR CO. et al.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

February 24, 1890.

FALSE IMPRISONMENT — MALICIOUS PROSECUTION.

1. An action for false imprisonment will not lie where the arrest and imprisonment are made, in due course, on regular proceedings of a court having jurisdiction of the offense charged.

2. In an action for malicious prosecution, where injury to plaintiff's good name and reputation in his business is alleged as an element of damage, there is no error in allowing proof that at the time of the prosecution plaintiff was not of good credit.

3. In an action for malicious prosecution, it is sufficient to show that defendant either commenced or continued the prosecution, maliciously.

Appeal from St. Louis circuit court; GEORGE W. LUBKE, Judge.

This case presents two causes of action, — the first, for an "unlawful and wrongful" arrest and imprisonment; and the second, for malicious prosecution of the plaintiff in the St. Louis court of criminal correction on a charge of obtaining money by false pretenses. The answer was a general denial. At the trial, plaintiff's evidence disclosed that he had been arrested upon a warrant regularly issued in a criminal prosecution before the St. Louis court of criminal correction upon information duly filed. The court admitted, against plaintiff's objection, evidence that he was not of good credit at the time of the prosecution. It also gave, among the instructions at defendants' instance, the following: "(3) Although the plaintiff succeeds in satisfying you from the evidence that the prosecution complained of was commenced by defendants without probable cause, yet you will find your verdict for the defendants unless you further find from the evidence that the defendants commenced and continued the prosecution against the plaintiff maliciously." There was a finding for defendants on each of the two causes of action, and judgment accordingly, from which plaintiff appealed after the ordinary preliminaries.

E. F. Stone, for appellant. Campbell & Ryan, for respondents.

PER CURIAM.

1. The evidence did not support plaintiff's first cause of action. It was predicated on the illegality of plaintiff's arrest, but his own evidence revealed that the arrest and imprisonment complained of were made, in due course, upon regular proceedings of a court having complete jurisdiction of the offense charged. No cause of action for false imprisonment could be maintained on his own...