74 Mo. 404 | Mo. | 1881
This is an action commenced in the circuit court of Lafayette county for false imprisonment. The petition alleges in substance that defendant, without any warrant in law, procured the arrest and imprisonment of plaintiff in the jail of said county from the 2nd till the 4th day of February, 1878, for which ho asked damages in the sum of $10,000 The charge in the petition is denied by the answer, and upon a trial of the cause plaintiff obtained judgment for $400, from which defendant has appealed.
The evidence introduced on the trial tended to establish substantially the following facts: that defendant on the 19th day of January, 1878, filed a complaint, or statement, before a justice of the peace of said county, alleging that .Blewett (the plaintiff' herein) had maliciously thrown down ■ defendant’s fence, and that lie had been damaged thei’eby in the sum of $25 ; that said cause ivas tried before Wm. Beck, the justice, and defendant obtained judgment for :.$15; that plaintiff' declined to pay the said judgment and
Kindred questions to those which the above objection raises were involved in the cases of Barnett v. Atlantic & Pacific R. R. Co., 68 Mo. 56, and Spealman v. Missouri Pacific R’y Co., 71 Mo. 434. In the above cases the constitutionality of that clause of the 43rd section of the railroad law, which allows in a civil action double damages to be recovered by the owner of stock killed on a railroad under certain circumstances therein mentioned, was drawn in question. Said clause was assailed on the ground that the statute was penal, and as it allowed the penalty to be recovered in a suit brought in the name of the person sustaining the damage, it -was in conflict with the constitution requiring fines and penalties to be paid into the school fund. The court held that the act, though penal, was constitu- ■ tional, and upheld the right of the party injured to sue fo and recover the penalty in a civil action brought in his,
But it is argued that the judgment being for so many dollars, though the recovery be in fact for a penalty prescribed by statute, it, therefore, becomes a debt and is within the constitutional prohibition. At the present term of this court, in the case of Ex parte Hollwedell, who had been imprisoned for the non-payment of a fine for violating an ordinance of the city of St. Louis, and who sought his discharge in a proceeding by habeas corpus, on the ground, among others, that the judgment rendered in favor of the city against him was a debt, for the non-payment of which ho could not be lawfully imprisoned under the constitution of the State, in disposing of the question it was said that “ in one sense every fine imposed for a violation either of a law of the State or the ordinance of a municipal corporation, recovered either in a criminal proceeding or in a civil.proceeding quasi criminal in the name of the corporation, is a debt against the party upon whom it is imposed and who has been adjudged to pay it. Still, it is nevertheless a debt for a fine, for the non-payment of which the party against whom it is adjudged may be imprisoned.”
The said act, (Gen. St. 1865, p. 379, chap. 76,) was designed to protect the inclosed premises of all persons, whether farmers, mechanics, merchants or others, from the invasions, destruction and damage to which they would be ■subjected by such trespasses as throwing down the fences inclosing them,- often committed by lawless, reckless and irresponsible persons ; and to make it effectual in accomplishing the purpose for which it was intended, the State, in the just exercise of its police jiower, through the general assembly, has seen fit to make such trespasses penal. To construe the statute.according to the view of plaintiff’s counsel would not only overturn what has been decided, but would rob the statute of its virtue and defeat the object of its enactment. The cause was tried by the trial court, on the theory that the imprisonment of plaintiff under said act was illegal, and in this it erred, and for the •error thus committed the judgment will be reversed,