125 Neb. 269 | Neb. | 1933
This is an action brought by plaintiff to recover dam
The consideration of this question involves a very careful reading of the record. Space will not permit a detailed statement of the .facts herein. Suffice it to say that from the record it appears that the plaintiff, on and prior to the 16th day of July,- 1930, was employed by Sears-Roebuck Company in its retail store at Omaha, Nebraska; that on the day previous a customer came to plaintiff, who was working in the brush department, and purchased a paint brush at a price of $1.15, whereupon the plaintiff made the proper record of the purchase on the cash register. A few minutes later the same customer returned, stating that she desired to return the brush and purchase a more expensive one, finally selecting one for $2.25, paying the plaintiff the $1.10 additional. The plaintiff did not plape the money in the cash register and did not complete the transaction in compliance with the rules of the store, but in her testimony she states that she laid the $1.10 on the cash register intending later to complete the transaction, and when she returned the money and slip were gone. When she ■ came back from lunch the next day, someone. had left word for her to come to the offices on the third floor, which she did. There she met a man, who afterward developed to be Mr. Behr, who was a representative of the Willmark System, a system which is employed by mercantile establishments throughout the United States to check the personnel of department stores, general stores, chain stores and retail stores for knowledge of stock, merchandise, courtesy and honesty of employees; that she went into a room with Mr. Behr, and he shut the door and asked her to explain the transaction of the day before of which
Plaintiff claims while in this office she was restrained of. her liberty;.that she wanted to call her husband, and Mr. Behr pushed the telephone away and told her if she did not make this statement he would have her arrested and sent to jail; that she was thereby restrained of her liberty and suffered' damages, thereby.
From the pleadings it is difficult to determine whether this action is one seeking recovery for slander or for false imprisonment, but it seems to have been tried on the theory of an action to recover damages for false imprisonment, and our disposition of the case will be confined to that theory. ,
The plaintiff in her testimony seeks to repudiate the statements that she made concerning these two transactions, stating that she was compelled to sign them by threat of prosecution and that they were untrue. We have searched the entire record to find any evidence where any person placed his hands upon the plaintiff, or in any manner used any physical force to restrain her liberty, and have found none. Therefore, the only basis upon which the plaintiff could predicate her recovery would be upon the theory that, under the alleged threats she claimed were made to her concerning an arrest, she would be justified in harboring a reasonable apprehension that force would be used to prevent her from leaving the room had she so desired. There is no testimony that either Sellers, the general superintendent, or Mr. Arndt,
While this1 young woman was but seventeen years of age, she had reached a state of sufficient mental maturity to select a husband for herself, and her conduct would indicate intelligence generally. Her employers testified she was a very competent clerk. . It is incredible to one who reads the record that a person of her intelligence would place her name to a written document confessing guilt of a crime when the statements contained therein were wholly untrue, even though she were threatened with arrest upon refusal. It appears further that the door was left open a good part of the time where plaintiff was in the office with Behr; that he went out for several minutes and the witness made no attempt to escape from her alleged imprisonment. It must be borne in mind that the plaintiff then was an employee of Sears-Roebuck Company; that she in writing confessed to an embezzlement of her employer’s funds.
The courts quite uniformly adopt the rule that proprietors of business enterprises generally have a right to detain a customer a reasonable length of time to ascertain whether or not such customer has settled for goods being removed from the establishment. The plaintiff’s employer
“The true test seems' to be, not the extent of the restraint (where the interference amounts to a restraint), but the lawfulness thereof.” 11 R. C. L. 793, sec. 5.
We have carefully reviewed the decisions cited herein and many others, and generally where the courts have allowed recovery under facts similar to those of this case, the restraining party acted oppressively while under a
The other line of cases, where courts allow recovery, is where the restraint occurs by an officer of the law unwarrantedly and wrongfully using his official authority to accomplish the restraint.
“The- proprietor of a restaurant may detain a patron, who apparently has not paid for food purchased, a reasonable time to investigate the circumstances.” Jacques v. Childs Dining Hall Co., 26 A. L. R. 1829 (244 Mass. 438).
“Unlawful restraint of an individual’s personal liberty or freedom of locomotion against his will comes within definition of ‘false imprisonment.’ ” Fox v. McCurnin, 218 N. W. 499 (205 Ia. 752).
It will be observed that the right of recovery must be based upon some interference with freedom of locomotion. In Tobin v. Bell, 73 App. Div. (N. Y.) 41, a case presenting a situation very similar to the instant case, the court said:
“The verdict is clearly against the weight of the evidence. The plaintiff is unsupported in her story and is contradicted by four witnesses, two of whom are disinterested. While actions of this kind, as' a rule, are peculiarly for the jury to determine, yet when the evidence is overwhelmingly against any unlawful detention and tends very strongly to show that the plaintiff was the culprit instead of the defendants, we are impelled to intervene to prevent the defendants being mulcted in damages unjustly.”
Here the record shows that plaintiff had confessed in writing to a state of facts constituting a felony. She was very fortunate to escape criminal prosecution, to say nothing of asking a civil court to tax her employer in damages because it sought in a lawful manner to elicit from her facts relating to her criminal conduct. Can it be truthfully said from the testimony presented that the plaintiff possessed a reasonable ground for apprehension
In Weiler v. Herzfeld-Phillipson Co., 189 Wis. 554, which was a case very similar in fact to the case at bar, the court said;
To announce a doctrine that a situation such as the one presented by this record is sufficient upon which to predicate an action for false imprisonment and make the employer answerable in damages would not only materially impair the machinery for the ascertainment of truth, but also would greatly interfere with the enforcement of criminal law. Should a police officer or detective or other enforcement officer be held legally answerable in damages each time he attempted to examine one suspected of a crime, it would destroy one of the most effective instruments in the administration of criminal justice.
From the whole record we conclude the interview with the plaintiff from which she claims the false imprison
Reversed.