Scoopmire v. Taflinger

• Decision Date: 02 February 1944
• Docket Number: No. 17147.,17147.
• Citation: 52 N.E.2d 728,114 Ind.App. 419
• Parties: SCOOPMIRE v. TAFLINGER et al.
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court

114 Ind.App. 419

52 N.E.2d 728

SCOOPMIRE

v.TAFLINGER et al.

No. 17147.

Appellate Court of Indiana, in Banc.

February 1, 1944.

Dissenting Opinion February 2, 1944.

Appeal from Bartholomew Circuit Court; George W. Lang, Judge.

Action by Joseph H. Scoopmire against Warren A. Taflinger and another to recover damages for false arrest and imprisonment. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff appeals.

Affirmed.Wickens & Wickens, of Greensburg, E. J. Morrison, of Columbus, and George B. Hall, of Versailles, for appellant.

James A. Emmert, Atty. Gen., Frank Hamilton, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Wm. H. Dobbins and Julian Sharpnack, both of Columbus, for appellees.

CRUMPACKER, Chief Judge.

This action was commenced in the Ripley Circuit Court by the appellant Joseph H. Scoopmire against the appellees Warren A. Taflinger and Joseph Schuerman to recover damages for false arrest and imprisonment. The case was venued to Bartholomew County and tried to a jury in the circuit court. After the appellant had rested his case in chief, the appellee Schuerman moved the court to instruct the jury to find in his favor and to return a verdict accordingly. This motion was sustained, the jury was so instructed and so did, and the trial proceeded as to the appellee Taflinger. A verdict was returned favorable to said appellee also and, over the appellant's motion for a new trial, judgment was rendered against him and this appeal perfected. The sole error assigned is in overruling the motion for a new trial which questions (1) the sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict, (2) the legality of the verdict, (3) the refusal of the court to give certain instructions tendered by the appellant and the giving of certain others, including the peremptory instruction in favor of the appellee Schuerman, over his objection, and (4) the admission and rejection of certain evidence.

[1] An assignment of error to the effect that the verdict of the jury is not sustained by sufficient evidence presents no question for review when the verdict involved is negative. McKee v. Mutual Life Ins. Co. of New York, 1943, Ind.Sup., 51 N.E.2d 474;Wilson, Adm'x, v. Rollings, 1938, 214 Ind. 155, 14 N.E.2d 905. The reason for this rule is obvious as a verdict unfavorable to the party having the burden of proof does not rest upon the persuasiveness or quantum of the evidence against him but rather upon his failure to sustain the burden of establishing his own case by a preponderance of the evidence.

The essential facts in this case are undisputed and sum up to this: The appellant was arrested by the appellee Taflinger, a state police officer, under the mistaken belief that he was an escaped inmate of the Muscatatuck Colony for Feebleminded at Butlerville. Escapes or “wanderings off” from said colony were not infrequent and when occurring were reported to the State Police Barracks at Seymour. A day or two prior to the appellant's arrest such an escape had occurred and all patrolmen working out of the Seymour office, including the appellee Taflinger, had been instructed to be on the lookout for such inmate and upon his apprehension to return him to the Muscatatuck Colony or to detain him until such time as a representative of such colony could do so.

When first seen by the appellee Taflinger the appellant, answering somewhat the description of said escaped inmate, was walking east on State Highway 50 at a point about five miles east of Butlerville. The said appellee, believing the appellant to be the man he was looking for, asked him if he wanted to ride, and thereupon the appellant voluntarily got into the said appellee's car and they proceeded east toward the town of Holton where the appellant lived. In the course of their conversation the appellant told said appellee his name and that he resided in said town of Holton; but without making any effort to verify this information said appellee drove directly through Holton and at the same time informed the appellant that they were going to Versailles to see the appellee Schuerman, the sheriff of Ripley County, and that they would return to Holton later, to which the appellant acquiesced. On reaching Versailles the appellee Taflinger parked his automobile near the county jail and the appellant, believing that he was about to make a social call on the sheriff, accompanied the said Taflinger into said jail where he was locked in a cell and there imprisoned for a period of several hours.

At the time the appellant was so imprisoned the appellee Schuerman was not present and the jail was in the temporary control of his wife, who was then acting as his duly authorized deputy. As such deputy, however, Mrs. Schuerman took no active part in the incarceration of the appellant further than giving the cell block keys to the appellee Taflinger. The appellee Schuerman, upon his return to the jail, recognized the appellant and knew he was not an escaped inmate of the Muscatatuck Colony but neither released him nor made any effort to procure his release further than to notify the appellee Taflinger that the appellant was not the man he wanted. Several hours later the appellee Taflinger returned to the jail, released the appellant and took him home. At the time of the events above narrated the appellant was a man 40 years old. His mental development had been arrested at an early age and, as a result thereof, he had never been able or permitted to engage in steady employment. He lived with his parents and was supported by his father, a retire railroad man, but was at liberty to go and come during the daytime as he pleased. His health was not robust in that he was very nervous and suffered from asthma and hay fever.

[2] On the above facts, which rest upon testimony corroborated in the main by appellees themselves, there can be no doubt that the appellant was falsely arrested and imprisoned. He had committed no crime nor was he even suspected of doing anything further than having escaped from the Muscatatuck Colony which, being no crime, did not warrant his confinement in the county jail even if guilty, nor is there any evidence that his mental condition was such that he was dangerous when at large either to himself or others. A jury composed of reasonable men, if properly instructed as to the law applicable to the situation, could come to no other conclusion. Was it error, then, for the court to instruct the jury to find for the appellee Schuerman, the Sheriff, and to return a verdict accordingly? Sec. 47-831, Burns' Replacement, § 15313-12, Supplement 1935 to Baldwin's 1934, pertaining to the Department of State Police, provides as follows: “Any person having charge of a jail, prison or reformatory or other place of detention shall receive any prisoner arrested by a police employee of the department within the jurisdiction served by such jail, and shall detain him in custody until otherwise ordered by a court of competent jurisdiction, or by the superintendent; and such person who shall refuse to so receive any prisoner or who, having received him, shall release him otherwise than as above specified, shall be subject to removal from office by the governor.” Acts 1935, ch. 299, § 17, p. 1463.

It is appellee Schuerman's contention that, under the circumstances of this case, the above statute imposed upon him, as sheriff of Ripley County and Keeper of its jail, a clear and unequivocal duty to receive the appellant and detain him in custody until discharged in the manner therein provided, and that no liability for false imprisonment can result from his obediance to a plain legislative mandate. On the other hand the appellant takes the position that, if said statute is to be so construed, it is unconstitutional because, to quote from his brief, “it would violate the provisions of the Constitution regarding freedom from arrest, and would give the state police arbitrary and unlimited authority over and above the courts and would leave the constitutionally elected sheriff subject to the whims and caprices of any state policeman who saw fit to bring a man to jail, without or with warrant of law, this even when the sheriff knew the detention was wrongful.”

[3][4][5][6] Neither in his brief nor in oral argument has the appellant specifically indicated what provisions of the State or Federal Constitutions will be violated if the statute in question is given the literal construction its language seems to indicate, and it appears to us that his objection to the statute is not to its constitutionality but rather to the effect that it is an unreasonable exercise of the police power of the state, the indirect result of which is to abolish or destroy a remedy for a wrong he has suffered. At most this statute does nothing more than relieve anyone charged with the custody of a jail, prison or reformatory from responsibility to persons committed and detained therein at the request of an employee of the Department of State Police. Its effect is such that, if the imprisonment proves to be false and illegal, redress against the jailer is denied and any remedy the aggrieved person may have must be enforced against the employee of said Department who initiated the wrong. It is true that at common law every right, when invaded or withheld, must have a remedy, and every injury or violation of duty must have its proper redress by a suit in equity or by an action at law, yet private rights and remedies, when conflicting or repugnant to legislative enactment in the reasonable exercise of the police power of the state, must give way. The statute in question, as disclosed by its own terms, was enacted “to the end that the criminal laws may be efficiently enforce and offenders promptly and certainly apprehended.” Sec. 47-832, Burns' 1940 Replacement, § 15313-13, Supplement 1935, to Baldwin's 1934. The Department of State Police maintains no jails of its own, and it is evident that the Legislature intended to place county jails at the disposal of said...