Boaz v. Tate

43 Ind. 60
CourtIndiana Supreme Court
DecidedMay 15, 1873
StatusPublished
Cited by30 cases

This text of 43 Ind. 60 (Boaz v. Tate) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Boaz v. Tate, 43 Ind. 60 (Ind. 1873).

Opinion

Osborn, C. J.

This was an action commenced by the appellee against the appellants, in the Marion Circuit Court, and by change of venue taken to the Morgan Circuit Court, where it was tried by a jury, resulting in a verdict in favor of the appellee, in the sum of nine hundred dollars. A motion was filed, in which the appellants and each of them moved the court for a new trial, and assigned nineteen causes for the motion. It was overruled, and judgment was rendered .on the verdict. Exceptions were taken to the action of the court in overruling the motion for a new trial, and a proper bill of exceptions was filed. We do not deem it necessary at this time to state the causes for a new trial set out in the motion.

The errors assigned are, 1st. That the court erred in overruling a demurrer to the second paragraph of the complaint. 2d. That the court erred in sustaining appellee’s demurrers to the answer of the appellants to the complaint. 3d. That the court erred in overruling the motion for a new trial.

The original complaint contained one paragraph. To that the defendants filed separate answers of general denial. A jury was impanelled, and after hearing a part of the evidence, on motion of the defendants, leave was granted to them to file an amended and additional answer, and the jury was withdrawn. Afterward, on motion of the plaintiff, he had leave to file an amended complaint. Under that leave he filed a second paragraph. A motion was made to strike out parts of the amended complaint, which was overruled, and an exception taken. A joint answer was then filed to the whole complaint, in two paragraphs; first, the general denial; second, a justification. After an unsuccessful motion, made by plaintiff, to strike out parts of the second paragraph of the answer, a motion was made and sustained, requiring the defendants to. separate and number the paragraphs, to which they excepted and filed a bill of exceptions. Under that ruling and requirement of the court, the [63]*63defendants separated the second paragraph into three, making the answer consist of four paragraphs. The plaintiff filed separate demurrers to the second, third, and fourth paragraphs of the answer, which were sustained, to which the defendants excepted.

No question is made as to the sufficiency of the first paragraph of the complaint. Neither the demurrer nor the assignment of errors reaches that. The demurrer was filed to the second paragraph, and the ground assigned was, that it did not contain facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action, and that there was a misjoinder of causes of action set out in the two paragraphs.

The first paragraph of the complaint is for a false imprisonment. The second contains a full history of the alleged grievances of the appellee against the appellants. It is very long and, in some things, unlike anything that we have ever met with before. We have had some difficulty in determining what is the gist or gravamen of the action in that paragraph. It alleges that the defendant Boaz was acting Lieutenant of police, and the defendant Umversaw was acting Marshal of the city- of Indianapolis; that they attempted to'provoke and induce him to violate the penal laws of the State and the ordinances , of the city, that they might have a pretence for arresting him; failing to do so, they arrested him on the false charge of profane swearing, and took him to the county jail, when the other defendant, Parker,‘by his jailer and turnkey, joined in the conspiracy against him, and received him from them, and confined him. in jail as a prisoner, refusing to receive bail until ordered to do so by the city judge; that when he had procured bail, they preferred other false charges against him and refused to discharge him until he gave bail. It also states that the appellee was possessed of property, both real and personal, of the value of several thousand dollars; that the arrest and imprisonment were unlawfully and maliciously made on false charges and without warrant, or written, or reasonable, or probable cause; that he was afterward tried and acquitted on two of the charges; and that as to the other, it was shown [64]*64on his trial for that, that fifteen minutes had elapsed after it had been committed, and that the offence had entirely passed before the arrest was made. There are many allegations of abuse and oppression and details of circumstances, which we think it unnecessary to repeat in this opinion. They are charged to have been done maliciously and without reasonable or probable cause.

It will be observed that It is alleged that the appellee was arrested and taken to jail by the city officers and there imprisoned, without any. warrant and without reasonable or probable cause. The gravamen of the action, we think, is for the illegal arrest and imprisonment, and not for malicious prosecution. All that is said about the motive of the defendants for the arrest and imprisonment, or the circumstances connected with or attending them, can make no difference with the real ground or cause of action, only by way of aggravation. Although the code has abolished all distinctions between actions at law and suits in equity, and provided that there shall be but one form of action for the enforcement of private 'rights and the redress of private wrongs, legal principles remain unaltered. There has been no attempt made to change or modify them. The rights of parties remain and are adjudicated upon and settled under the same rules.and regulations, except as to the form or name of the action. Before the code, if the plaintiff mistook the form of action, or sued at law when his remedy was in equity, or filed a bill in chancery when he should have sued in an action at law, he failed in his action without regard to its merits. Such results are now avoided, and parties may demand and courts grant relief according to the allegations and proofs. Before the code, the judicious lawyer investigated and made a thorough examination of the law, before commencing -suit, to enable him to determine, amongst other things, to which class of actions his belonged, and under which form of the class it was to be brought. In some particulars, different rules were applicable in the different forms of actions. Then, the evidences of a thorough lawyer were [65]*65manifested by his skill as a special pleader; by the accuracy and .terseness of his statement of his client’s case. It seems to us that prudence should dictate to the pleader now the exercise of the same care and skill in the statement of a cause of action or ground of defence as before the code, although the consequences of a failure to do so are less fatal. The confusion growing out of the trial of a cause defectively stated, or when several causes of action are improperly joined, is the same now as before. The court is not relieved from making the proper distinctions on the trial.

In Seeger v. Pfeifer, 35 Ind. 13, Downey, J., on page 15, says: The distinction between false imprisonment and malicious prosecution is pretty well established. When the arrest is upon valid process issued by a court having jurisdiction, trespass for false imprisonment will not' lie, though such arrest is maliciously procured by the prosecutor without probable cause.” In Colter v. Lower, 35 Ind. 285, on p. 286, the same judge says : “ If the imprisonment is under legal process, but the action has. been commenced and carried on maliciously and without probable cause, it is malicious prosecution. If it has been extra-judicial, without legal process, it is false imprisonment.” He refers to Turpin v. Remy, 3 Blackf. 210, and Johnstone v. Sutton, 1 T. R. 544.

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Bluebook (online)
43 Ind. 60, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/boaz-v-tate-ind-1873.