McNally v. Arnold

• Decision Date: 04 May 1905
• Parties: MCNALLY v. ARNOLD ET AL.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

127 Iowa 437

103 N.W. 361

MCNALLY

v.ARNOLD ET AL.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

May 4, 1905.

Appeal from District Court, Jones County; W. G. Thompson, Judge.

Action to recover damages against defendants for personal injuries inflicted on plaintiff while plaintiff was under arrest, in the custody of defendants as sheriff and deputy. There were a verdict and judgment for the defendants, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.Welch & Welch, for appellant.

Cash & Rhinehart and Park Chamberlain, for appellees.

McCLAIN, J.

Plaintiff was arrested for intoxication, and placed in the charge of defendant Sherrill, a deputy sheriff; and while in the sheriff's office, which was a connecting room between the jail, on one side, and the sheriff's family residence, on the other, he was, as it appears, more or less severely beaten by the defendants. The justification relied on by the defendants was that plaintiff was boisterous and disorderly, and made use of vile, indecent, and profane language in the presence of the women of defendant's family, and that the beating inflicted upon him was solely to enforce and maintain order and discipline in the jail, and was not unreasonable, unnecessary, or unusual. There is a conflict in the evidence as to the extent of the beating, and as to whether any serious injury was inflicted. But the whole matter was for the jury, and there is no occasion for us to interfere unless some error of law was committed in the trial of the case.

Complaint is made of the instructions, but, without extending this opinion by unnecessarily setting them out at length, it is sufficient to say that the instruction which, as it is complained, required plaintiff to prove that the acts of defendants were malicious and willful, had reference only to exemplary damages, and plaintiff has no ground to complain, inasmuch as he did not recover a verdict for even actual damages.

As to another instruction, it is contended that it was erroneous because it justified a beating of plaintiff for the mere use of abusive language, and thus violated the well-known rule that mere language will not justify an assault. But the instruction in fact was that if plaintiff, while in defendants' custody, became violent, and used loud, vulgar, profane, and abusive language, so as to disturb defendants and others in the vicinity, and refused to desist when requested, it was the duty of the defendants, as officers, to enforce order and prevent the continuance of plaintiff's...