Seidler v. Burns

• Decision Date: 08 March 1911
• Citation: 84 Conn. 111,79 A. 53
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: SEIDLER v. BURNS.

79 A. 53

84 Conn. 111

SEIDLER

v. BURNS.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

March 8, 1911.

Appeal from Superior Court, Hartford County; William S. Case and Ralph Wheeler, Judges.

Action by Michael Seidler against John J. Burns for malicious prosecution. A demurrer to portions of the complaint was overruled, and plaintiff recovered judgment for $400, and defendant appeals. Judgment set aside, and new trial ordered.

As the result of the defendant's complaint a warrant for the plaintiff's arrest upon the criminal charge of willfully injuring the defendant's property was issued by proper authority, and the plaintiff arrested thereon. He was placed in a cell in the Hartford police station, where he remained overnight. He continued in custody until the afternoon of the following day, when he was given his liberty. Upon his presentment to court later he was found not guilty, and discharged. Other facts are sufficiently stated in the opinion.

Joseph L. Barbour and Stewart N. Dunning, for appellant.

A. Storrs Campbell, for appellee.

PRENTICE, J. (after stating the facts as above). The defendant complains of the court's action in overruling his demurrer to the complaint, of several portions of its charge, and of a ruling upon the admission of testimony. The demurrer was properly overruled. It was a misdirected effort to have stricken from the complaint a portion of the allegations of one paragraph claimed to set out improper elements of damage in connection with others admittedly proper. A motion and not a demurrer was the appropriate proceeding to resort to to accomplish that end. Rules under the Practice Book 1008, p. 247, § 155c. In that part of the charge which dealt with the subject of damages the jury were informed that the plaintiff might, in the event that he established a right of action, recover compensation for among other things "injury to the person by being imprisoned upon the defendant's charge, such as injury to his health, for physical suffering caused by cold, and want of a bed, and deprivation of food." By this broad and unqualified language they were permitted to compensate the plaintiff for the physical consequences to him from cold, the lack of a bed, and deprivation of food while under arrest, whatever the circumstances attending those conditions might have been, whoever might have been the responsible au-tuor of them, and whether or not the defendant had knowledge of them, or reason to anticipate them, either as being the natural or probable result of the arrest, or otherwise.

The authorities are in singular conflict as to the law upon the subject of these instructions. In several decisions it appears to have been held that in cases of this sort the prosecutor is legally responsible for all the consequences of the prosecution, which through his malice he caused to be brought without probable cause. Abrahams v. Cooper, 81 Pa. 232, 235; San Antonio & A. P. Ry. Co. v. Griffin, 20 Tex. Civ. App. 91, 95, 48 S. W. 542; Fenelon v. Butts, 53 Wis. 344, 349, 10 N. W. 501; Druimn v. Cessnum, 61 Kan. 467, 472, 59 Pae. 1078; Johnson v. McDaniel, 5 Ohio S. & C. Dec. 717. In the first named and earliest of these cases, it was determined that the precise elements under discussion were proper ones for the jury's consideration. In Sedgwick on Damages. § 457, is a statement to the same effect, and in the same language; Abrahams v. Cooper, supra, being referred to as authority, and the sole authority for it. Sutherland on Damages gives countenance to the rule, to the extent of saying that it is claimed for it that it has the support of the most numerous cases. Section 1237. Other cases either distinctly express or plainly indicate a different view. Zebley v. Storey, 117 Pa. 478, 485, 12 Atl. 569; Flam v. Lee, 116 Iowa, 289, 293, 90 N. W. 70, 93 Am. St. Rep. 242; Garvey v. Wayson, 42 Md. 178, 189; Laing v. Mitten, 185 Mass. 233, 234, 70 N. E. 128; Lock v. Ashton, 13 Jur. 167. The reason assigned for the first-named position, and the only one which has been attempted, as far as we have been able to discover, is that expressed in the brief opinion in Abrahams v. Cooper, supra, as follows: "Malice was the gist of this action, and the natural and probable consequence of this arrest was the imprisonment of the plaintiff. The suffering of the plaintiff from cold, the want of a bed to lie upon, and deprivation of food for many hours sprang directly from the imprisonment to which the malice of the defendant exposed the plaintiff. Because others were at fault, it does not take away the participation of the defendant in...