Hawkins v. Lutton

• Decision Date: 16 March 1897
• Citation: 95 Wis. 492,70 N.W. 483
• Parties: HAWKINS v. LUTTON ET AL.
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

95 Wis. 492

70 N.W. 483

HAWKINS

v.LUTTON ET AL.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

March 16, 1897.

Appeal from superior court, Douglas county; Charles Smith, Judge.

Action by Lucy Hawkins against G. W. Lutton and others. Judgment for plaintiff. From such judgment and an order denying a new trial, defendants appeal. Judgment reversed, and order denying new trial affirmed.

This was an action to recover damages for an alleged false imprisonment of the plaintiff, by the defendant Lutton, the city marshal of the city of Superior, and his five codefendants, policemen of said city. The plaintiff charges the defendants with having assaulted and imprisoned the plaintiff, and deprived her of her liberty for the space of one day, May 18, 1895, contrary to her will, etc. The defendants answered jointly, in substance, though in a crude and imperfect manner, that they were at the time such officers, respectively, as stated, and that they arrested the plaintiff without warrant, pursuant to section 268 of the ordinances of the city of Superior, by which it was made the duty of the marshal, superintendent of police, and all police officers and watchmen to summarily arrest and take before the police justice of the city all persons in the act of violating any of the provisions of the general laws of the city, or any ordinances passed in accordance therewith, and to make complaint before said justice against such offender, and which allowed a detention of the person arrested in the watchhouse or jail for 24 hours, Sunday excepted, before taking such person before such justice; that the plaintiff was arrested on the charge of having, on said 15th day of May, 1895, at said city, violated section 283 of the ordinances of said city, “in that she did then and there, contrary to said ordinance, be an inmate of, visit, resort to, frequent, and be found in, a disorderly house, house of ill fame, and place resorted to for the purpose of prostitution, assignation, and fornication,” with which offense she was in the forenoon of the next day charged, on complaint of said defendant Lutton. It was alleged that the defendants, in so arresting the plaintiff, acted in good faith, and without malice, and had probable cause to believe the plaintiff guilty; and, upon information and belief, they charged that she was guilty of said offense, and that she was arrested in and taken from a disorderly house in the said city of Superior. At the trial, the plaintiff produced evidence tending to support her complaint, and that upon the trial in municipal court, on the day after the arrest, she was acquitted of the charge against her, and tending to show that she was not guilty of the said charge. It appeared that the plaintiff and her sister were arrested about 10 o'clock in the evening, and were released upon bail, after a detention of about two hours. On the part of the defendants, evidence was given by the defendant Lutton that he was chief of police, and, on the evening in question, was going past the plaintiff's house, and some police officers were standing in front of it; that he staid there two or three minutes, and heard very loud talking in the house,--profane and indecent language,--and learned that the officers had been called there by some of the neighbors; that, after listening two or three minutes, he told the officers to “pull” the house for a disorderly house. It appeared from what he heard that they either had a fight there, or there had been one. There were two male and two female voices. It was a female voice that was doing the principal talking. The language was loud, profane, and indecent. That it was profane and indecent was clear from the evidence of the witness. Defendants' counsel asked the witness if he knew the reputation of this house at that time, as to its being a disorderly house, bawdy house, or house of ill fame. Upon objection made, the court ruled that the defendants might show that the plaintiff's house, at the time of the arrest, was a house of prostitution, but not that it was a disorderly house, in the sense that there were disorderly noises, loud, boisterous, profane, and obscene language frequently emanating therefrom, and fighting or quarreling and conduct of that kind carried on therein; and evidence offered by the defendants of that character, to maintain their defense, was then and during the trial excluded, although admitted to some extent as bearing on the question of the character of the house. Evidence was given tending to show that the house had the reputation, at the time, of being a house of prostitution, and that the plaintiff had the reputation of being a prostitute, and that her sister, living there, had the same reputation; and the evidence tended to show that, shortly prior to the arrest, complaints had been made to the police as to the character of the house, and the trouble going on there, and that liquor was carried there through the day and night by strange men. Considerable evidence was given tending to show that the house was frequented by strange men at late hours. In rebuttal, the plaintiff produced evidence tending to show that the house was not a house of prostitution; that the disturbances there were caused by plaintiff's brother, when intoxicated; and that no woman living there used obscene or indecent language. The court instructed the jury, among other things, that “the word ‘disorderly,’ in the ordinance, must not be construed to mean a house in which quarrels, disturbances, and that class of things occur, but must be construed in the more restricted sense, as meaning a house used for the purpose of prostitution, gambling,” etc.; that “the burden of proof was upon the defendants to show, by a preponderance of evidence, that the house where the plaintiff was arrested was a place resorted to for prostitution; that the reputation of the house is not conclusive as to its being a...