Franklin v. City of Seattle

• Decision Date: 13 October 1920
• Docket Number: 15808.
• Citation: 192 P. 1015,112 Wash. 671
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: FRANKLIN v. CITY OF SEATTLE.

192 P. 1015

112 Wash. 671

FRANKLIN v. CITY OF SEATTLE.

No. 15808.

Supreme Court of Washington

October 13, 1920

Department 2.

Appeal from Superior Court, King County; A. W. Frater, Judge.

Suit by Elizabeth Franklin against the City of Seattle. Judgment of dismissal, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

W. F. Hays, of Seattle, for appellant.

Walter F. Meier and Thomas J. L. Kennedy, both of Seattle, for respondent.

BRIDGES J.

This was a suit for damages. A general demurrer to the complaint was sustained. Plaintiff refused to further plead, and her action was dismissed. From this judgment she has appealed.

The complaint alleged that the city of Seattle had created and maintained a 'board of health' and a department of police; that these two departments conspired together to arrest certain persons accused by them of having some infections or contagious disease; that it was a part of the conspiracy that, when the policy had caused the arrest, the person so arrested would be placed in the city jail, and there turned over to the board of health, which would make blood tests and give treatments for diseases which the person under arrest did not have, and under pretense of such treatment, and the necessity therefor, would keep such person in confinement in the board of health department of the jail for long periods; that on the 28th day of December, 1917 certain of the police officers of the city unlawfully and maliciously entered the home of the plaintiff, and, without having any warrant therefor, arrested her and forcibly took her into custody and to the city jail, and there falsely and maliciously caused her to the charged with being a 'disorderly person,' and set opposite her name the letters 'B. T.,' which letters, translated, meant 'blood test'; that as a part of the conspiracy the health officer took charge of her, and forcibly took from her arm quantities of blood for the pretended purpose of making a blood test; that thereafter the health officer maliciously and falsely charged her with having an infectious and contagious disease, when, in fact she had no such or other disease, of which fact the health officer had full knowledge; and that, without authority of law, plaintiff was maliciously confined in jail, with other prisoners, for more than one year, all to her great humiliation, disgrace, and damage.

Stripped of the usual verbiage of pleading, the charge is that the city police unlawfully and without cause arrested plaintiff and put her in jail, and then turned her over to the city health officer, who made a blood test and falsely found that she had a certain disease, and kept her in jail for more than a year, and that all of this was done falsely, wrongfully and maliciously. The question is: Do these facts state a cause of action against the city of Seattle? We do not think they do. The only direct connection the city had with these transactions was that it created the board of health and appointed its officers, and created the police department and made appointments thereto and owned the jail. Every other thing was done by the health officers and the policemen. They, and they alone, were guilty, if any one was, of all...