Judson v. Reardon
| Decision Date | 01 January 1871 |
| Citation | 16 Minn. 387 |
| Parties | EDWARD H. JUDSON v. TIMOTHY REARDON. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Brisbin & Palmer, for appellant.
C. K. Davis, for respondent.
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED
The undisputed facts in this action are that on the nineteenth of May, 1870, during a fire in St. Paul, the plaintiff with his horse and buggy attempted, at the corner of Market and Fifth streets, to cross a hose which was laid from a cistern to an engine in use at said fire. Upon being forbidden to do so by some one in charge of the hose, he drove up Market street, and crossed the hose about 200 feet from where he first attempted to cross. As he did so the defendant, who was endeavoring to extinguish said fire, and who was an alderman and foreman of the fire company working said engine, arrested him, took him to the city prison, and told the jailer that he gave plaintiff into custody, and to lock him up. The jailer thereupon locked him up in the city prison, from which he was released about two and one-half hours afterwards by the order of the chief of police to the said jailer.
This action was brought in the court of common pleas of Ramsey county, to recover damages for such arrest and detention.
The defendant justified under section 14 of an ordinance of the city of St. Paul establishing a fire department, adopted October 9, 1869, and which is as follows:
The plaintiff objected that such ordinance is unconstitutional and void, in so far as it attempts or purports to authorize the officers named, so to arrest and detain any one.
Assuming the right of the common council to impose the fine specified in the first clause of this ordinance, the power which the second gives to arrest persons committing the acts specified, has no relation whatever to such penalty. Such arrest and detention are not authorized for the purpose of enabling proceedings to be instituted for the infliction thereof. It is to all intents and purposes a separate and independent punishment for the offenses specified, as much so as if it had provided in so many words that the offender should be punished by said fine, and also, at the pleasure of such officer, by imprisonment by him till the fire was extinguished.
The plaintiff was just as much liable to be arrested on a complaint for so crossing said hose and fined therefor, the week after the fire, as he was at the moment he crossed it, notwithstanding such arrest and detention by the defendant.
The framers of the clause had the idea of prevention in their minds, but instead of authorizing such officers to prevent persons from doing the acts specified, the authority is to detain for a certain time after the act done. This may have a tendency to deter from such actions in future, but it operates by way of punishment for the past.
And so the appellant in his brief says that his object was "both to punish for the act done, and to prevent its repetition by plaintiff or others."
For these purposes the clause in question authorizes an arrest without warrant, and detention till the fire is over, the officer being the judge that the offense to be punished has been committed, and executing himself the sentence which he himself passes.
It is clear that the clause in question offends against more than one constitutional guaranty; that the person so arrested and detained is deprived of his liberty without due process of law, and that his right of trial by jury is violated. Const. art. 1, §§ 4, 7. It is therefore void, and can no more be pleaded in justification of the defendant's acts than if it had never existed.
It gave him no more authority to arrest than to detain the plaintiff; for it is not the intention of the ordinance, nor does it purport to authorize such officer to arrest such offender, that he may be held to answer for the offense.
The object of the arrest is that he may be detained by the officer till the fire is over.
The defendant, therefore, stood on the same footing as any private person would have, in respect to such acts.
The law authorizes a private person to arrest another, i. e., to take him into custody, that he may be held to answer for a public offense committed, or attempted, in his presence, making it the duty, however, of a private person, who has arrested another for the commission of a public offense, without unnecessary delay to take him before a magistrate, or deliver him to a peace officer. Section 20.
The jury in the case at bar returned a verdict for the plaintiff, and assessed his damages at $800.
This appeal is taken from the order of the court below denying defendant's motion for a new trial, upon a case settled.
Instead of such a case or paper book, consisting of so much of the return as will clearly and fully present the questions arising on said review, as is required by rule 14, the appellant has embodied with an "argument," a "statement of case," comprising so much of the proceedings at the trial as seemed to him material, together with a brief statement of the cause of action, of the substance of the defense set up, and what is said to have been the substance of the charge of the judge, and of the requests to charge of both parties.
The respondent, denying that such statement of the case fully presents the testimony and matters of law to be considered, has prefixed to his brief what he states to be a copy of the record in this court, to which statement no exception was taken at the argument by the appellant. The copy sets out the case as settled in full, but contains neither the pleadings nor the grounds upon which the motion for a new trial was made.
From the briefs of counsel, however, we take it that the grounds of the motion, or at least, those insisted on, are that the verdict is against evidence, error in the charge of the judge, and that the damages were excessive.
Regularly, of course, we should not inquire whether or not a verdict was justified by the evidence, or the damages excessive, upon a case which did not purport to set out the evidence in full; but inasmuch as the respondent, instead of making the point, has placed the evidence in full before us, and argued the case upon the above points, we will proceed to consider the appellant's points in their order.
The first objection is that the verdict is against evidence.
In the absence of the pleadings, the statements of the parties are the only source of information as to their contents. On this point the appellant merely states that
The respondent states in his brief "the elements of the complaint," viz., "that defendant maliciously, and with force and arms, and with intent to injure the plaintiff, compelled and forced the latter to go with him through divers public streets in St. Paul to the city prison, and that he imprisoned him, and kept him detained in said prison, without reasonable and justifiable cause, for two hours."
There is no doubt, upon the evidence, that the defendant compelled plaintiff against his will to go with him from Market street to the city prison, and that he was there by defendant's direction confined in such prison for the length of time aforesaid, and till he was released, not by any agency of defendant, but by the ordering the chief of police at the request of another citizen.
If this was illegal, it was, in law, malicious, and would support the verdict, for it would be the willful doing of an injurious act without lawful excuse, from which the law implies malice, (2 Stark. Ev. pt. 4, p. 904; Com. v. Snelling, 15 Pick. 337, 340,) and this though defendant supposed he was acting in conformity to law, (2 Stark, Ev. pt. 1, p. 904, note 9.)
We have seen that the ordinance was void; therefore, the arrest was none the less illegal; therefore, none the less malicious, because the defendant intended to act, or did act, under it. 1 Chit. Pl. 147; Sedg. Dam. 528.
The appellant, however, insists that the arrest and detention was justifiable, aside from the ordinance.
The defendant as an alderman, he says, was justified in arresting the plaintiff if he crossed the hose against the direction of those in charge of it, unless he used unnecessary violence.
There is no pretense of unnecessary violence; but, as we have seen, defendant had no more authority because he was an alderman to arrest, than a private citizen.
There is good ground, however, to contend that plaintiff had made himself liable to be fined.
In that event the law authorized defendant to arrest, that is, to take plaintiff into custody, that he might be held to answer for such offense. But was that his intention? He says, in so many words, as already remarked, that his intention was altogether different. He acted under the ordinance and the authority he supposed it gave him to detain plaintiff till the fire was over. His own evidence fully sustains his counsel's argument in these respects. He says he was acting in his official capacity when he made the arrest, and about 15 minutes after he had caused plaintiff to be locked up he told a police officer what he had done, but that he thought it would be best to let plaintiff out now that the danger was over. If his intention was to detain plaintiff in custody till the fire was over, he intended willfully to do an injurious act without a lawful excuse, —...
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Cole v. Andrews
... ... As bearing on this ... question, see Chapman v. Dodd, 10 Minn. 277 (350); ... Cole v. Curtis, 16 Minn. 161 (182); Judson v ... Reardon, 16 Minn. 387 (431); Burton v. St. Paul, M. & M. Ry. Co., 33 Minn. 189; Bartlett v. Hawley, ... 38 Minn. 308; Smith v. Maben, 42 ... ...
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Rauma v. Lamont
...although he had no particular malice or ill will against the party injured, he is liable. 2 Am. & Eng. Enc. (2d Ed.) 847; Judson v. Reardon, 16 Minn. 387 (431). that the acts of Healy were justified up to the point of putting the boy out of the house, the question would still be for the jur......