Tucker v. Jerris

• Decision Date: 23 May 1883
• Citation: 75 Me. 184
• Parties: FRANK S. TUCKER v. WILLIAM H. JERRIS.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

75 Me. 184

FRANK S. TUCKER v. WILLIAM H. JERRIS.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

May 23, 1883

ON EXCEPTIONS and motion from superior court.

An action of the case to recover damages for an alleged false arrest. The writ was dated August 19, 1881. The plea was the general issue. The verdict was for the plaintiff in the sum of one hundred and twenty-five dollars.

At the trial the presiding judge in his charge, after giving the general rule of damages, continued:

" The plaintiff claims in addition to this to recover punitive damages…. They are damages awarded in cases where the evidence discloses an utter and wanton disregard of the rights of another party. They also rest in the sound discretion of the jury. They are not obliged to award exemplary damages and such damages should only be awarded where the testimony discloses an utter and wanton disregard of the rights of the plaintiff. If you come to the question of damages, you can award in this case such exemplary damages as seems to you proper and just, under the circumstances of the case, if at all."

The opinion states the other material facts.

A F. Moulton, for the plaintiff.

It cannot be claimed for Jerris that he did not know all the facts upon which Chase based his belief. It is no excuse that he was wilfully and wantonly ignorant. 14 Central Law J. 64; Merriam v. Mitchell, 13 Me. 456; Bailey v Carville, 62 Me. 525; Morton v. Young, 55 Me 29.

The rule is well settled that punitive damages may be allowed for wilful injuries to the person. Wadsworth v. Treat, 43 Me. 163; 2 Greenl. Ev. § 253; 1 Kent's Com. *630; Sedgwick, Dam. *39.

In this case, however, although punitive damages might and should have been allowed, the amount of the verdict is not sufficient to be called punitive.

Tucker actually lost about twenty-five dollars, in loss of time expenses for counsel fees, & c. He was entitled to recover for his bodily and mental sufferings, five days in jail, and for the disgrace and ignominy of such an arrest and the injury to his reputation. Field on Dam. 538; 2 Greenl. Ev. § 267. For all this, the verdict rendered could not have been more than sufficient, hence no punitive damages could have been allowed, and the defendant could not have been aggrieved.

T. H. Haskell, for the defendant, cited: Coombs v. Scott, 12 Allen 497; Forsyth v. Day, 41 Me. 395.

BARROWS J.

The facts bearing upon the maintenance of the action established by the testimony in this case may be briefly stated as follows: The plaintiff was arrested upon a writ sued out in the name of the defendant as plaintiff by one Chase, who subscribed the requisite oath to cause the plaintiff's arrest, as agent for this defendant. The suit was for the price of a hack which once belonged to defendant and was left at the shop of Chase, who was a carriage-maker. Chase called on defendant to know what he would take for it, and defendant named the price for which he would sell it to him. Shortly after, Chase, without other permission from defendant to sell, sold the hack with some harnesses that belonged to himself, to the plaintiff, receiving of him $25 in part payment. Chase told defendant that he had sold the hack to a responsible party, and paid him a small part of the cash received. But defendant never ratified the sale to plaintiff as made on his behalf, and before the commencement of the suit in which plaintiff was arrested, he told Chase that he should look to him for the pay for the hack. Chase went to an attorney to commence an action in his own name against the plaintiff but gave the attorney such a version of the transaction that he advised that it should be commenced in the name of this defendant, Jerris, the original owner, which was accordingly done. There is no evidence that the defendant ever employed an attorney or authorized Chase to employ one on his account, but the contrary. The defendant, and Chase, and the attorney, (all who knew anything about it) thus testify in the most distinct and positive terms. Chase's statement on cross-examination that he styled himself in the affidavit agent for Jerris and that it was true, taken in connection with what he instantly adds--that he went to see counsel with the intention of suing the man " on his own responsibility, " and the explanation which follows, fairly interpreted, simply means that he acted as Jerris's agent on that occasion, and, under advice of counsel, considered he had a right so to do.

There is no evidence that defendant ever did anything touching the prosecution of that action or knew that it had been commenced in his name until after the arrest; but plaintiff is obliged to rely upon a ratification by the defendant of Chase's acts as his agent in this wise:--Some question arose about the correctness and sufficiency of the bond tendered by the plaintiff to procure his release from arrest, whereupon the attorney who commenced the action, went to the office of this defendant who was the nominal plaintiff in that suit to get his approval of the sureties. There seems to have been no conversation except about the sufficiency of the sureties and the attorney testifies that he has no recollection that then or at any other time...