Talbott v. Great Western Plaster Co.

132 S.W. 15, 151 Mo. App. 538, 1910 Mo. App. LEXIS 820
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedNovember 21, 1910
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 132 S.W. 15 (Talbott v. Great Western Plaster Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Talbott v. Great Western Plaster Co., 132 S.W. 15, 151 Mo. App. 538, 1910 Mo. App. LEXIS 820 (Mo. Ct. App. 1910).

Opinion

ELLISON, J.

Plaintiff’s action is founded on a petition for malicious prosecution of a suit by attachment. The judgment in the trial court was for the defendant.

The case was before us on a former appeal and will be found reported in 86 Mo. App. 558. It appears that defendant instituted an action by attachment against plaintiff on the 19th day of July, 1898, before a justice of the peace and that afterwards on the 1st day of September of that year defendant dismissed the attachment and it was accordingly dissolved. It further appears that before the attachment writ was issued defendant filed the proper and necessary statutory bond. On the trial (without a jury) from which this appeal was taken the court gave, at plaintiff’s instance, two instructions permitting his recovery if defendant’s act was prompted by malice and was without probable cause. But the court refused a third instruction asked by him which allowed a recovery merely for a wrongful attachment without regard to malice or probable cause, and then found for defendant. Prom such finding we assume the court concluded that the evidence did not make a showing of malice, and in refusing plaintiff’s third instruction the court has ruled that no action for damages lies where the attachment is sued out without malice and want of probable cause, although it be wrongfully procured; and that damages for a mere wrongful attachment can only be recovered by an action on the attachment bond.

The law is clear that in ordinary actions the party against whom the action is brought cannot recover damages, however ill-founded and wrongful the action [541]*541may have been. Payment of costs seems to be the only liability resting upon a defeated plaintiff.

It is likewise true that in an action for malicious prosecution of a civil suit there must be proof made of malice and want of probable cause. [Sharpe v. Johnston, 59 Mo. 557; Stubbs v. Mulholland, 168 Mo. 47.] The mere wrongful bringing of the action complained of will not sustain a case for malicious prosecution. That is to say, if one asserts and stands upon a right to maintain an action for malicious prosecution, he will fail if he goes no further than to prove the prosecution was wrongful. The cases cited and others of like character from, this state, go no farther than that.

But we have a different question from that. The basis of plaintiff’s case is not that defendant prosecuted an ordinary action against him, but tliat he instituted an extraordinary action in aid of the principal one by suing out an extraordinary writ of attachment, whereby he seized plaintiff’s property. We have not been referred to a case in this state which decides that an action for a wrongful attachment cannot be maintained. On the contrary the right was asserted by the St. Louis Court of Appeals in an opinion by one of the most distinguished members of that court, Judge Rombauer. [Fry v. Estes, 52 Mo. App. 1]

. In other states the eases are not in harmony. In Lindsay v. Larned, 17 Mass. 190, and Wilcox v. McKenzie, 75 Ga. 73, and perhaps some others, it is held that no action can be maintained for merely wrongfully procuring an attachment, and that -the only in-, stance in which a plaintiff in attachment can be held liable is when he takes out the attachment in malice and without probable cause. These courts seem to lose sight of a distinction between a mistaken or wrongful prosecution of a suit, and a wrongful seizure and detention of one’s property by extraordinary process; [542]*542at least they do not refer to such distinction. They argue that as nothing but costs can be put against a plaintiff who is unsuccessful in bis suit, so nothing more serious should result to him if he proceeds wrongfully, without malice, to sue out extraordinary process in aid of his suit and thereby seize the defendant’s property.

In other states an action for damages for wrongful attachment is directly sanctioned. [McLaughlin v. Davis, 14 Kan. 135; Half v. Curtis, 68 Tex. 640; Sanders v. Hughes, 2 Brev. (S. C.) 495; Reukert v. Elliott, 79 Tenn. 235; Jerman v. Stewart, 12 Fed. Rep. 266; Kirksey v. Jones, 7 Ala. 622; Donnell v. Jones, 13 Ala. 490.]

It is a part of the argument by those denying the right to the action unless the act was malicious and without probable cause, that the law recognizes the payment of costs as the only punishment for ill-founded attachments and as a deterrent to hasty seizures, on the ground that if one were liable to any other damage, the hazard would be too great and many would prefer to lose just claims rather than.take the risk. That reasoning might be of some force if it were not that by the terms of the law, where attachment bonds are required, as by our statute, an attaching plaintiff who fails in the attachment, is made liable on' the bond for a wrongful attachment, regardless of any question of malice or probable cause. So that, practically, the question is merely one of procedure; and not one of fundamental right, shielding an attaching creditor from the risk of mistake in taking out the writ and ■laying hold of his debtor’s property. If such creditor may be sued on his attachment bond and damages recovered for a merely wrongful attachment, why may not the action be brought on the case and recovery had for the same thing? "Why should he be compelled to sue upon the bond? Suppose the bond was, for some reason, invalid? In Half v. Curtis, supra, the court, [543]*543referring to the trial of that ease, said: “The appellants asked the court to instruct the jury, in effect, that the appellee was not entitled to recover even actual damages, if the attachment was not malicious and without probable cause, though they might believe that the writ was wrongfully sued out and levied. This charge the court refused to give. . . . The province of the attachment bond is to give security to the defendant on which he may rely if the attachment be wrongfully sued out and as to the sureties is the foundation of their liability. Not so, however, as to the plaintiff, who wrongfully avails himself of process which is too often used for purposes and in eases never contemplated by law. As against a plaintiff using such process, the basis of his liability is its abuse or wrongful use whereby a defendant is deprived of the use and possession of his property, or it may be of the property itself.”

In Sanders v. Hughes, supra, the court said that “the plaintiff is not bound to sue upon such bond, for any injury he may sustain for suing out the attachment. But he may sue at common law. The bond was intended as additional security.”

In McLaughlin v. Davis, supra, Justice Brewer says (italics our): “In a petition to recover damages for the wrongful issue of an attachment, it is unnecessary to aver a want of probable cause for the suing out of the attachment. A party is entitled to an attachment only when certain facts 'exist, not when there is probable cause to believe they exist. If they do not exist, the attachment is wrongfully issued, and the party causing it to issue is liable for all the damages actually sustained. Nor is it necessary in such case to set out or sue on the undertaking.”

A general statement of the law is made in 3 Am. and Eng. Ency. Law (2 Ed.), 245, as follows:

“In a few jurisdictions it is maintained that to give an attachment defendant a right of action for the [544]*544wrongful suing out of an attachment, independently of statute and not under the attachment bond, proof of malice is necessary.

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Bluebook (online)
132 S.W. 15, 151 Mo. App. 538, 1910 Mo. App. LEXIS 820, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/talbott-v-great-western-plaster-co-moctapp-1910.