Pike v. Megoun

• Decision Date: 31 October 1869
• Citation: 44 Mo. 491
• Parties: ABRAHAM M. PIKE, Plaintiff in Error, v. SAMUEL MEGOUN et al., Defendants in Error.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

44 Mo. 491

ABRAHAM M. PIKE, Plaintiff in Error,

v.SAMUEL MEGOUN et al., Defendants in Error.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

October Term, 1869.

Error to Sixth District Court.

Lamb, Lewis, Lancaster, and Williams, for plaintiff in error.

I. The demurrer ought not to have been sustained. 1. A judge or judicial officer, when acting judicially and within the limits o his jurisdiction, is not liable for any erroneous decision, whether made honestly or from corrupt and malicious motives. (Yates v. Lansing, 9 Johns. 395; Pratt v. Gardner, 2 Cush. 63; Burnham v. Stevens, 33 N. H. 252; Bailey v. Wiggins, 5 Harr. 472; Chickering v. Robinson, 3 Cush. 543; Evans v. Foster, 1 N. H. 375; Bumpus v. Fisher, 21 Texas, 562; Cunningham v. Bucklin, 8 Cow. 183; 2 Gray, 120.) 2. Neither a judge when acting ministerially, nor a ministerial officer when acting judicially, is liable for erroneous decisions honestly made. (Reed v. Conway, 20 Mo. 22, 52-3; Jenkins v. Waldron, 11 Johns. 113; Humphrey v. Kingman, 5 Metc. 162; Davis v. Strong, 31 Verm. 332; Stone v. Augusta, 46 Me. 137; Hovey v. Mayo, 43 Me. 322; State v. Dunnington, 12 Md. 340; Tozer v. Child, 7 Ellis & Bl. 377; 40 Eng. Law & Eq. 85; Peavey v. Robbins, 3 Jones, N. C., 339; Stone v. Graves, 8 Mo. 151; Bevard v. Hoffman, 18 Md. 480; Morgan v. Dudley, 18 B. Monr. 693; Vanderheyden v. Young, 11 Johns. 159.) 3. Both the judge when acting in a ministerial capacity, and the ministerial officer when acting in a quasi judicial capacity, are liable for errors committed from willfulness, corruption, and malice. (Reed v. Conway, 20 Mo. 52-3; Bacon v. Benchly, 2 Cush. 100; Caulfield v. Bullock, 18 B. Monr. 494; Tozer v. Child, 40 Eng. Law & Eq. 89; Harris v. Whitcomb, 4 Gray, 433; Chrisman v. Bruce, 1 Duvall, 63; Bevard v. Hoffman, 18 Md. 480; Stone v. Augusta, 46 Me. 137.)

II. To deprive a rightful voter of the exercise of his privilege is such a personal injury as will sustain an action for damages. (1 Hill. on Torts, 85, and notes; id. 142; Ashley v. White, 2 Raym. 948; 2 Hill. on Torts, 418; Henshaw v. Foster, 9 Pick. 312.) Election officers are liable for wrongfully rejecting a voter, even without any proof of malice or corruption. (Blanchard v. Stearns, 5 Metc. 298; Henshaw v. Foster, 9 Pick. 312; Kilham v. Ward, 2 Mass. 236; Lincoln v. Hapgood, 11 Mass. 350; Capen v. Foster, 12 Pick. 485; Ashley v. White, 2 Raym. 950.)

Green & Wilson, for defendants in error.

I. The act of the defendants in error, in excluding the plaintiff from registration, was the result of a judicial investigation or trial; and the decision and judgment rendered thereon was a judicial, and not a ministerial act. (Stone et al. v. Graves, 8 Mo. 148; Wertheimer v. Howard, 30 Mo. 420.) Civil action for damages will not lie against a judge or judicial officer, acting judicial, within the sphere of his jurisdiction, for any errors he may commit, “however erroneous his decisions, or corrupt and malicious his motives.” (2 Chit. Pl., 13th Am. ed., 78; 2 Saund. Pl. & Ev. 613; Broom's Leg. Max. 61, 65, 69; Yates v. Lansing, 5 Johns. 282; Vanderheyden v. Young, 11 Johns. 158; 3 Bouv. Inst., art. II, p. 181; Kavanaugh v. Brooklyn, 38 Barb. 232; Stone et al. v. Graves, 8 Mo. 148; Lennox v. Grant, id. 254; Rochester White Lead Co. v. City of Rochester, 3 Comst., N. Y., 466; Weaver v. Devendorf, 3 Denio, 120; Wilson v. The Mayor, etc., 1 Denio, 599.)

II. The case of Reed v. Conway, 20 Mo. 22, cited by the plaintiff in error, bears only upon the liability of the ministerial officer acting in a quasi judicial capacity, and therefore does not affect the case at bar.

WAGNER, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

This was an action by plaintiff against the defendants, as registration officers within and for Ralls county, for refusing to register plaintiff as a legally qualified voter. The petitioner avers that prior to the general election in 1866 the plaintiff was a resident of said county, and had been for many years previous thereto; that he was legally qualified and entitled to be a voter therein; that he took and subscribed the oath of loyalty prescribed by the constitution of this State, and in all respects complied with the requirements of the law, and that his qualification as a voter was well known to each and all of the defendants at that time; but that said defendants, “conspiring together to cheat and defraud plaintiff out of his right to exercise the elective franchise, knowingly, willfully, corruptly, and unlawfully, jointly and severally, did refuse and exclude the name of plaintiff as a qualified voter, and refused to register him, or suffer him to be registered as such.”

To this petition there was a demurrer, assigning as grounds of objection that the defendants, in their capacity of registration officers, acted judicially, and were not responsible in a civil proceeding. There was judgment for defendants on the demurrer in the Circuit Court, which was affirmed by a division of the judges in the District Court.

The question presented is one of considerable embarrassment, on account of the multiplied, various, and conflicting opinions which have been entertained concerning ministerial and judicial acts. The proposition is undoubted, that wherever duties of a judicial nature are imposed upon a public officer, the due execution of which depends upon his own judgment, he is exempt from all responsibility by action for the motives which influence him and the manner in which such duties are performed. If corrupt or willful, he may be impeached or indicted, but he can not be prosecuted by an individual to obtain redress for the wrong which may have been done.

In all the cases, the rule is nowhere better laid down than by Fox, J., in Taaffe v. Downes, 3 Moore, P. C. 51. “The principle at law,” he said, “of exemption from being sued for matters done by judges in their judicial capacity, is of great importance. It is necessary to the free and impartial administration of justice that the persons administering it should be uninfluenced by fear and unbiassed by hope. Judges have not been invested with this privilege for their own protection merely; it is calculated for the benefit of the people, by insuring to them a calm, steady, and impartial administration of justice; it is a principle coeval with the law of the land and the dispensation of justice in this country, and is founded on the very framework of the constitution. It is to be met with in the earliest books of the law, and has been continued down to the present time without one authority or dictum to the contrary. I think myself called upon in assertion of this principle, so vitally necessary to the administration of justice, to maintain it in such a manner as may be necessary to give it full effect and operation; still, however, not trenching in any manner on the rights of the subject, which this principle is intended to protect--not to injure or infringe--it appears to be most necessary that a judge administering justice shall not be liable to answer for acts done judicially by him, by the way of action or prosecution. They are only answerable for their judicial conduct in the high court of Parliament; and without the existence of this principle it is utterly impossible that there could be such a dispensation of justice as would have the effect of protecting the lives or property of the subject. A judge must--a judge ought--to be uninfluenced by any personal consideration whatever operating on his mind when he is hearing a discussion concerning the rights of contending parties; otherwise, instead of hearing them abstractedly, a considerable portion of his attention must be devolved to himself. There is something so monstrous in the contrary doctrine that it would poison the very source of justice, and introduce a system of servility utterly inconsistent with the constitutional independence of the judges--an independence which it has been the work of ages to establish--and would be utterly inconsistent with the preservation of the rights and liberties of the subject.”

In a very recent case in the Supreme Court of the United States (Randall v. Brigham, 7 Wall. 523), it was declared to be the established law, and as the result of the authorities, that judicial officers are exempt from liability in a civil action for their judicial acts done within their jurisdiction, and judges of superior or general authority are exempt from such liability, even where their judicial acts are in excess of their jurisdiction, unless, perhaps, where the acts in excess of their jurisdiction are done maliciously or corruptly.

An action, then, does not lie against judges or magistrates, or persons acting judicially in a matter within the scope of their jurisdiction, however erroneous their judgment or corrupt and malicious their motives. (Cases supra, also, Stone v. Graves, 8 Mo. 148; Yates v. Lansing, 5 Johns. 282; 9 Johns. 395; Cunningham v. Bucklin, 8 Cow. 178; Briggs v. Wardwell, 10 Mass. 358; Doswell v. Impey, 1 Barn. & Cress. 169; Phelps v. Sill, 1 Day, 315.) But there is a limit to this judicial immunity. The civil remedy depends exclusively upon the nature of the duty which has been violated. When duties which are purely ministerial are cast upon officers whose chief functions are judicial, and the ministerial duty is violated, the officer, although for most purposes a judge, is still civilly responsible for such misconduct. (Wilson v. The Mayor, etc., 1 Den. 599; Rochester White Lead Co. v. City of Rochester, 3 Comst. 463.) And the same rule obtains where judicial functions are cast upon a ministerial officer. But to render a judge acting in a ministerial capacity, or a ministerial officer acting in a capacity in its nature judicial, liable, it must be shown that his decisions were not merely erroneous, but that he acted from a spirit of willfulness, corruption, and malice; in other words, that his action was knowingly wrongful, and not acccording to his honest convictions...