126 N.Y.S. 520 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1910
The plaintiff was arrested on a void execution issued by the defendant’s testator. He gave a bond for the jail limits and was released from the custody of the sheriff. He thereupon moved at Special Term of the" City Court, out of which the execution was issued, to vacate it. The motion was opposed by the said testator, and was denied. An appeal was taken to the Appellate Term, which likewise was resisted by the said testator, and the order of the court below was reversed and the execution was vacated. Thereupon this action was brought for false imprisonment. The plaintiff was permitted to.prove that he had occasion in his business to go outside of the jail limits, and that he desired during his vacation, as was his custom, to go to Kentucky to visit his mother, but that he did not do either because of his undertaking. He was also permitted to prove the efforts made by him to vacate the execution and the resistance offered thereto by the said testator.' In support of the point that the imprisonment terminated upon the discharge from the custody of the sheriff, the appellant cites Allen v. Shed
While no case in' this State -identical with this is called to our attention, the question involved has been decided by the Court of Appeals. (Worden v. Davis, 195 N. Y. 391.) That case involved the right to recover the disbursements and expenses incurred by the ■ plaintiff after the discharge on his own recognizance. The question turned, as Judge Hiscock stated, upon the duration and termination of the imprisonment, and it was decided, in effect, that the imprisonment continued until the order of the court dismissing the warrant. What was said in that case applies with full force • to this
The point already discussed nullifies the next point made by the appellant, to wit, that it w'as error to admit evidence as to what was done by the plaintiff to vacate the execution and of the opposition of the defendant’s testator thereto. Certainly, that evidence had a direct bearing upon the question whether the restraint terminated with the actual discharge from the custody of the sheriff. Had the plaintiff made a claim for the expenses incurred ■ there would have been no question as to the admissibility of such evidence. Fortunately for the defendant no such claim was made and ho evidence was offered as to expenses, but, nevertheless, the plaintiff was entitled to prove the history of the entire transaction as bearing upon the animus of the defendant and the general damages. He was properly permitted to show that he was' subjected not only to the ignominy of an arrest, but to the restraint of the jail limits while undertaking to obtain an adjudication freeing himself from such restraint, and that the defendant’s testator resisted his efforts throughout.
While the verdict of §2,500 is large, we are not prepared to say that it is too much for the indignity of the arrest and for the stigma thus put upon the reputation of a young man who was about to enter, one of the professions.
The judgment and order should be affirmed, with costs. •
Inge ah am, P. J., McLaughlin, Laugiilin and Dowling, JJ., concurred.
Judgment and order affirmed, with costs.