Hunt v. Conrad

• Decision Date: 22 December 1891
• Citation: 47 Minn. 557,50 N.W. 614
• Parties: HUNT v CONRAD ET AL.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

47 Minn. 557

50 N.W. 614

HUNTvCONRAD ET AL.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Dec. 22, 1891.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

1.A right to recover damages for a personal tort (false imprisonment) is a mere personal right, and not assignable even after verdict, but before judgment.

2.After judgment for such a cause, recovered against several defendants, one of them is entitled to have set off against such judgment another judgment which he had recovered against the plaintiff, the latter being insolvent.

Appeal from district court, Cottonwood county; A. D. PERKINS, Judge.

Action by Josiah C. Hunt against W. S. Conrad, Hubachek, and Barlow for false imprisonment.Judgment for plaintiff, and motion by defendant Conrad that it be set off against a judgment in his favor against plaintiff.Motion denied.Conrad appeals.Reversed.

Rea & Hubachek, for appellants.

Lorin Cray, for respondent.

DICKINSON, J.

In November, 1889, in an action in the district court between the parties to this appeal, Conrad recovered a judgment against Hunt for $325.03, which was docketed in the office of the clerk of the court in Cottonwood county.An execution thereon was returned unsatisfied in August, 1890.On the 21st day of November, 1890, in an action prosecuted by said Hunt against the defendants, Conrad, Hubachek, and Barlow, to recover for false imprisonment, a verdict was rendered in favor of Hunt, and against all of said defendants, for the recovery of the sum of $150, and on the 5th day of February, 1891, judgment was entered on that verdict.Before the rendition of that judgment, but after the verdict, and on the 28th of November, 1890, the plaintiff Hunt executed a formal assignment to one Cray of his right of action, and the verdict thereon, against the defendants, as well as the judgment to be entered thereon.Cray then knew of the existence of the former judgment of Conrad against Hunt, and that it was still unpaid.After judgment was rendered against the three defendants, a motion was made by the defendant Conrad that the same be set off pro tanto against the former judgment in his favor against Hunt.This was denied, and Conrad appealed.

The assignment to Cray did not affect the right of set-off, for the reason that nothing passed by the assignment.The right of Hunt to recover damages for a merely personal tort was personal to him.His right to recover damages for the unlawful detention of his person, and for his mental suffering or bodily pain, he could not transfer to another, nor upon his death would it have survived to his personal representatives.Such a right has not the ordinary attributes of property, and is not a subject of sale and transfer.Comegys v. Vasse, 1 Pet. 193;Rice v. Stone, 1 Allen, 566;People v. Tioga C. P., 19 Wend. 73;Zabriskie v. Smith, 13 N....