West Chicago St. R. R. v. Luleich

85 Ill. App. 643, 1899 Ill. App. LEXIS 937
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedNovember 27, 1899
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 85 Ill. App. 643 (West Chicago St. R. R. v. Luleich) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
West Chicago St. R. R. v. Luleich, 85 Ill. App. 643, 1899 Ill. App. LEXIS 937 (Ill. Ct. App. 1899).

Opinion

Me. Justice Adams

delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an appeal from a judgment for $800 in an action of trespass for false imprisonment.

The uncontroverted facts are as follows : The appellee, who was a resident of Hammond, Indiana, was in the city of Chicago on Sunday, December 6, 1896, and, between seven and eight o’clock in the afternoon of that day, boarded a grip car of appellant, which was operated by cable. The front part of the grip car was unenclosed, the rear part enclosed. Appellee got on the open part of the car, near to the gripman, and the conductor of the car shortly thereafter came from the enclosed part of the car and demanded from appellee his fare, when appellee gave to the conductor a coin of the denomination of one dollar, and the conductor gave to appellee ninety-five cents in change. Within a few minutes thereafter appellee went into the enclosed part of the car, and shortly afterward the conductor approached him and told him that he had given to him, the conductor, a bad or counterfeit dollar, and produced and exhibited to appellee a dollar which he said was the one he had received from him. The latter denied that the dollar shown to him was the one which he had given to the conductor, and insisted that the dollar which he had given to him was a good one. Upon appellee’s refusal to take back the dollar or return the ninety-five cents which had been given him in change, the conductor told him that he would have him arrested. The car was proceeding on its wáy during the controversy between the conductor and appellee, and the conductor, seeing a policeman, called him to the car, told him that appellee had passed a counterfeit dollar on him, gave the dollar to the policeman, and pointed out appellee to him and told him, the policeman, to lock appellee up. The policeman then took appellee by the arm and told him he would have to go with him. Appellee, not resisting, walked with the officer to the police station, where the officer searched him and found ninety-five cents in one of his pockets and sixty-five cents in another. Between eight and nine o’clock p. m. of that evening, appellee was locked up in a cell about twelve feet by fifteen feet in size, and kept there until the next morning, Monday morning, when he was taken before a justice and his bail fixed at $1,000, in default of giving which, he was ordered to be committed to jail. He was not so committed, however, but was returned to the same cell and kept there until the next Wednesday morning, when he was taken before the justice and discharged. Appellee’s diet, when confined as stated, consisted of biscuit and black coffee for breakfast and supper, and the same for dinner with corned beef added. His bed -was a wooden plank about fifteen feet long by eight inches wide.

Thus far there is no conflict in the evidence; but there is a conflict in the evidence as to whether-the dollar given by appellee to the conductor was genuine or counterfeit, and also as to the manner of appellee’s discharge. Appellee’s account of the manner of his discharge is as follows:

“ Q. On Wednesday morning what was done with you ? A. They took me up in front of the judge again.
Q. And what was done with you then, after you were before the judge? A. There was some gentleman there examined me.
Q. Well, tell to the jury what they did. A. He examined my hands and asked me where 1 was working.
Q. After that, what was done with you? A. That very same gentleman went up and spoke to the judge; what he said, I don’t know, but there was a police officer there. He told me to go. He never asked me anything at all.
Q. Then, what did you do, Hugo ? A. I left; 1 left the station.”
What purports to be h transcript of the proceedings . before Justice Severson was put in evidence, certified thus :
“ I certify that this transcript contains a full statement of all the proceedings before me in the above entitled case.
Olaf F. Severson, [Seal.]
Justice of the Peace.”

This document contains, among other things, the following: •

“ December 9, 1896. Case called for trial. Plaintiff and defendant in court. Plaintiff and defendant sworn and examined. Witnesses sworn and examined. After hearing all the evidence in the said cause, the court enters a nolle pros.

Witnesses:

William Andrews, 1552 Milwaukee Avenue.
Officer Sing-eon, 32nd Precinct Police Station.”

Olaf F. Severson, the justice, called as a witness, testified that the signature to the certificate was his; that the document was taken from the record book, but that the record was not kept by him; that he had no supervision over the person who did keep it, and that he had no knowledge of its accuracy. The witness also testified that the proceedings against appellee occurred before him. This, taken in connection with the fact that he did not keep the alleged record himself, had no supervision over the person who kept it, and, consequently, had no knowledge of its accuracy, would seem to make his certificate of but little, if any, weight. H. T. Keats, who was clerk for Justice Severson when the preceedings against appellee were had, testified that the record shown him, and from which the document certified by Severson was copied, was the criminal docket kept at the West Chicago Avenue Police Court, and was in his handwriting, and that he took it from the police sheet turned in every morning.

The transcript and the evidence of appellee both show that he was discharged. If there was no proper record kept, then it was clearly competent to prove by oral evidence appellee’s discharge. It is a legitimate inference from appellee’s discharge that the dollar which he gave to the conductor was genuine, and -this, whether he was discharged on a full hearing, as appears by the transcript, or for want of prosecution, as appears from his evidence. The dollar was delivered by Andrews, the conductor, to the officer when the latter arrested appellee. It was the duty of the officer to preserve the dollar and produce it at the hearing, and the legal presumption is he performed this duty. Andrews, the conductor, appeared as a witness^ according to the transcript; there had been ample time between December 6th, when the arrest was made, and December 9th, when appellee was taken before the justice for examination, to ascertain beyond peradventure whether the dollar was genuine, and to procure witnesses as to its genuineness or the contrary. If it was produced at the examination, and was counterfeit, it was the duty of the justice (and the legal presumption is that he" did his duty) to hold appellee to bail, but he discharged him. On the other hand, if appellee was discharged without examination, as he testifies, it is a legitimate inference that Andrews, the conductor, had ascertained that the dollar was genuine, and therefore declined to prosecute. In this connection it is significant that Andrews, who was a witness for appellant, did not testify that the dollar was counterfeit.

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Bluebook (online)
85 Ill. App. 643, 1899 Ill. App. LEXIS 937, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/west-chicago-st-r-r-v-luleich-illappct-1899.