Potter v. Swindle

• Decision Date: 26 February 1887
• Citation: 3 S.E. 94,77 Ga. 419
• Parties: POTTER v. SWINDLE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

3 S.E. 94

77 Ga. 419

POTTER v. SWINDLE.

Supreme Court of Georgia

February 26, 1887

Error from superior court, Mitchell county; BOWER, Judge.

D. H. Pope, for plaintiff in error.

I. A Bush, (by J. H. Lumpkin,) for defendant.

BLECKLY C.J.

A citizen of Alabama was traveling through Georgia going to Florida. In passing a county town he was noticed, and happened to be compared with the description of an escaped convict who was under sentence in the state of Louisiana. The sheriff having that description, and thinking from the almost perfect fit of the same to the unknown traveler, that he was the man described, arrested him, and carried him before a justice of the peace, and the justice of the peace advised that he be detained. No warrant was sued out against him. The sheriff handcuffed him, and carried him to the jail of an adjoining county, and imprisoned him several days, until some one came from Louisiana, inspected him, and determined that he was not the escaped convict; and then he was turned out of jail, and permitted to pursue his way. He brought his action for this outrage against the sheriff, which was tried, and the jury found a verdict in his favor for $25 damages.

1. Though an arrest without warrant be justifiable, yet to detain the prisoner longer than a reasonable time for suing out a warrant, then to handcuff him, carry him out of the county, and there incarcerate him for days, under no warrant whatever, is false imprisonment, if not kidnaping, and a finding by the jury of $25 is no compensation for the injury. Kidnaping is defined in § 4367, Code, and seems to be a close neighbor to this transaction. The very least that could be made out of the facts would be a gross case of false imprisonment. Code, § 4364; Lavina v. State, 63 Ga. 513. The statute authorizes the jury in certain cases, (and this is one of them,) to give exemplary damages, by way of deterring the defendant from repeating the tort, or committing similar torts. Code, § 3066. But here, as it would seem, the jury attempted to teach the plaintiff, by sad experience, not to bring any more such actions. We think they looked exactly to the contrary of the direction in which they should have looked. Their object seems to have been to discourage men from asking legal redress for grave injuries, instead of making the violators of law smart for injuries inflicted. It is plain that although this arrest may have been justifiable the sheriff deliberately, and apparently thoughtfully, declined to observe the law, which commanded him, if not expressly, by clear implication, to obtain a warrant within a reasonable time. Code, § 4725; Id. § 56; Lavina v. State, 63 Ga. 513. He went before a justice of the peace, and that proves that he had a...