Powell v. Champion Fibre Co.

• Decision Date: 22 December 1908
• Parties: POWELL et ux. v. CHAMPION FIBRE CO. et al.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

63 S.E. 159

150 N.C. 12

POWELL et ux. v. CHAMPION FIBRE CO. et al.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

December 22, 1908

Appeal from Superior Court, Burke County; Peebles, Judge.

Action by D. A. Powell and wife against the Champion Fibre Company and others. From a judgment of nonsuit, plaintiffs appeal. Affirmed.

Clark C.J., dissenting.

An agent of a corporation charged with the duty of collecting debts due to the corporation is not authorized to arrest the wife of a debtor, and the corporation is not liable for a wrongful arrest of the wife unless the acts of the agent have been ratified.

E. B Cline and A. A. Whitener, for appellants.

S. J Ervin and Smathers & Morgan, for appellees.

BROWN J.

The evidence tends to prove that D. A. Powell, the plaintiff's husband, was an employé of defendant company lived in one of its houses, and owed defendant $11 for a stove; that, becoming dissatisfied, he quit defendant's service, left the stove in the house he had lived in, packed his household goods in a wagon, and started walking ahead on the road to Canton, leaving his wife and child on the wagon to follow after him. The wagon not overtaking him, he turned back, and shortly thereafter met the wife following with the wagon. The feme plaintiff testified that after her husband had gone on ahead, leaving the wagon in the defendant's commissary yard, and after the wagon had stood there about two hours: "I spoke to Montgomery Smith first. He was close to the wagon; I was on the ground. I asked him why it was that he detained me; that the stove was in the house, and there was nothing in the wagon that belonged to him. He said they did not loan out things to accommodate people. He then walked off and went back to the end of the wagon. Harry Reynolds came up." At this point the court permitted plaintiff's counsel to state what they proposed to prove as further tending to show the liability of the defendant. Counsel stated that they proposed to show that Reynolds was assistant superintendent in charge of the commissary; that one Huggins Smith, the superintendent, and Reynolds had the paper writing marked "A" in their possession (the paper writing is a warrant for arrest of D. A. Powell, signed by R. L. Ray, J. P.); that they stopped Mrs. Powell in the yard, and Reynolds told her in the presence of Smith that they were going to arrest her husband and send him to jail, and were going to hold her until the officers came back with her husband; that they then went and looked at the stove in the house, and returned to the wagon, when Reynolds said if Mrs. Powell would pay $2 they would surrender her the warrant for her husband and she could go; that she paid the $2 (for the use of the stove evidently), and drove on her way. Upon intimation from the court that the plaintiff could not recover, she submitted to a nonsuit, and appealed.

There are two reasons why the plaintiff cannot recover of defendant upon this state of facts:

1. There is no sufficient evidence of such personal restraint as will amount in law to an arrest. Her person was not touched or her liberty restrained by any kind of force or show of force. The conduct of Smith and Reynolds was certainly not to be commended, but there is nothing in it to indicate any actual forcible detention of plaintiff. A mere unasserted purpose or intention to do so is not sufficient. In the second edition of the American & English Encyclopedia of Law, vol. 12, p. 734, it is stated that, "in order to constitute an unlawful imprisonment where no force or violence is actually employed, the submission must be to a reasonably apprehended force, the circumstance merely that one considers himself restrained in person not being sufficient to constitute a false imprisonment, unless there is in fact a reasonable ground to apprehend a resort to force upon an attempt to assert one's liberty." The evidence does not show that the feme plaintiff in this case in any way attempted to assert her liberty nor to cause her wagon to move, but that she waited without any reasonable apprehension of force, or else because her driver did not see fit to move the wagon. It is held by all the authorities that the act relied upon as an unlawful arrest, in order to constitute false imprisonment, must have been intended as such and so understood by the party arrested, or there can be no imprisonment. 12 Am. & Eng. Enc. p. 736, where all the cases are collected. The evidence does not show that the feme plaintiff considered herself under arrest, or that any such invasion of her personal liberty was put into effect. While Reynolds may have told the feme plaintiff he was going to detain her, he took no steps to do so. He and Smith at once walked off to the house and examined the stove, and on their return settled the controversy. So far as the evidence discloses, Mrs. Powell could have driven off at any moment.

2. There is no allegation in the complaint, or any evidence to support such allegation, had it been so alleged, that this tort was committed by Reynolds and Smith within the scope of their authority in furtherance of the master's business or that the master ratified and affirmed their acts. It was the duty of Smith to collect debts due the defendant, and, if the husband was indebted to defendant, to use due diligence in collecting such debt, but he...