Hotel Supply Co. v. Reid
Decision Date | 12 November 1918 |
Docket Number | 6 Div. 400 |
Citation | 80 So. 137,16 Ala.App. 563 |
Parties | HOTEL SUPPLY CO. v. REID. |
Court | Alabama Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Circuit Court, Jefferson County; C.W. Ferguson, Judge.
Action by John Reid against the Hotel Supply Company for damages for malicious prosecution and false imprisonment. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.
The complaint charges that H.F. Burton, acting within the line and scope of his employment or agency, maliciously and without probable cause therefor, caused plaintiff to be arrested under a warrant issued by H.P. Abernathy, judge of the municipal court of Birmingham, on May 23, 1916, on the charge of a worthless check, which charge had been judicially investigated before this action, and said prosecution ended and plaintiff discharged. It appeared that on the trial of the case the clerk of the municipal court of Birmingham was present with the docket of said court, and the entry therein in the case of the State v. John Reid showed the following judgment entry: Thereupon the witness was handed a copy of the warrant and affidavit. This was objected to by defendant on the ground that it charged no offense and was irrelevant.
The following charges were refused to defendant:
J.L Drennen, of Birmingham, for appellant.
Hugh H Ellis, of Birmingham, for appellee.
As to whether a prosecution before a court or officer without jurisdiction of the offense will support an action on the case for malicious prosecution, there is considerable conflict of authority. 18 R.C.L., p. 20, § 10. There is a like conflict as to whether an indictment, complaint, or affidavit that charges no offense against the law, and upon which process issues for the seizure of the person, can be made the basis of such action. The questions stated are categorically the same, for it is manifest that a complaint or indictment that charges no offense is impotent to confer jurisdiction. The conflict arises, not on a question of substantive law fixing or denying liability, but as to a question of procedure--whether the plaintiff should bring case or trespass.
Where it is shown that a prosecution was prompted by malice and was without probable cause, and a "colorable cause" or a "colorable invocation of jurisdiction" is shown--and "by a colorable cause or colorable invocation of jurisdiction," as applied to cases like the instant one, we understand and mean that some person apparently qualified to do so has appeared before the justice and made his complaint under oath and in writing, stating at least some fact or facts which enter into and may under some conditions or in co-operation with some other unstated fact or facts constitute a criminal offense, or stating some fact or facts which bear some general similitude to a fact or facts designated by law as constituting an offense" ( Broom v. Douglass, 175 Ala. 268, 57 So. 860, 44 L.R.A.[ N.S.] 164, Ann.Cas.1914C, 1155; Blancett v. Wimberley, 78 So. 318; Canter v. Harris, 81 South. ---, reason and the weight of authority sustain the rule that an action on the case for malicious prosecution will lie .
In one of the leading cases it was said:
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Nesmith v. Alford
...holds that the legal process need not be letter perfect if the papers are a "colorable" charge of an offense. Hotel Supply Co. v. Reid, 1918, 16 Ala.App. 563, 80 So. 137, 138; Shannon v. Simms, 1906, 146 Ala. 673, 40 So. 574. 5 Rich v. McInery, 1894, 103 Ala. 345, 15 So. 663; Daniels v. Mil......
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Kuhnhausen v. Stadelman
...the proceedings charged no crime, but they may be deemed authority in the present discussion, for, as observed in Hotel Supply Co. v. Reid, 16 Ala. App. 563, 80 So. 137, the questions of want of jurisdiction and failure to state a crime "are categorically the same, for it is manifest that a......