Sisk v. Shadrack Hurst.

• Decision Date: 31 January 1865
• Citation: 1 W.Va. 53
• Court: West Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: William Sisk, by &c., v. Shadrack Hurst.

1 W.Va. 53

William Sisk, by &c.,

v.Shadrack Hurst.

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

January Term, 1865.

1. It is sufficient answer to an action fur malicious prosecution, that the defen-dant had.probable or reasonable cause to infer that the plaintiff had committed the offense for which he was arrested.

2. Where a party applies to a justice for a warrant for the arrest of another, and details to the justice the whole of the information he has derived from other persons as to the commission of an offense by the party whom he seeks to arrest, and the justice in the discharge of his duty, advises the issuing of the warrant against him, it is such matter for defense to an action for malicious prosecution as will prevent the recovery of damages by the party arrested.

3. Nor is the party liable for damages when he has information which leads him, as a prudent man, to suspect or believe that the person alleged to have committed an offense, was engaged with others in committing the same, or was in company with those who did actually commit an offense.

This was an action of trespass on the case, brought by William Sisk an infant who sued by George W. Sisk his next friend, in the county of Harrison. The suit was commenced in October, 1863, and was finally heard in the circuit court at the June term, 1864. The plaintiff in his declaration averred that the defendant, Shadrack Hurst, had on the 29th day of September, 1863, gone before a justice of the county and falsely and maliciously charged, without probable or reasonable cause therefor, that the plaintiff together with one John Mills and others had assaulted and beaten the defendant with axe-helves, stones and other dangerous weapons, and had thereby procured without probable or reasonable cause, a warrant for the arrest of the plaintiff: and that upon a hearing for the supposed offense upon the warrant, the plaintiff was discharged from custody; whereby the plaintiff alleged that he had sustained great damages.

On the trial of the cause the plaintiff gave evidence tending to prove his acquittal before the justice, that lie had no active connection with the assault on the defendant although he was in the crowd at Wilsonsburgh when it took place, that hs was waiting at a blacksmith shop for work seut there by his father, and that there was not probable cause to charge him with the commission of the assault charged in the warrant.

The defendant introduced the justice to prove that he issued the warrant on his application, and that he stated at the time of his making the application that he did not know of his own knowledge that the plaintiff was connected with the other parties in the commission of the offense, but that he had been told that he had been, and that he did not know whether under such circumstances the plaintiff ought to be embraced in the warrant, and that the justice replied that he saw no impropriety in embracing the plaintiff in the warrant; whereupon he was so embraced and the defendant made oath that the warrant was true; but the justice did not in terms advise that the plaintiff should be included therein. He also introduced one John G. Pultz who testified that John Mills had told the witness that the plaintiff had throwm a certain brickbat during the affray, that had been found the next day about fifty yards at a drain in the road, when the defendant passed from the place where the plaintiff was standing...