35 A.D. 452 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1898
This action was brought to recover damages for false imprisonment. On the trial a nonsuit was directed, and from the judgment entered thereon the plaintiff appeals. We are to inquire whether, upon the whole case, there was anything to go to the jury. The trial judge expressed a doubt as to the case being one for nominal damages or for a dismissal of the complaint, but adopted the latter view, which, we think, upon all the facts established, was the proper one. The gravamen of an action for false imprisonment is an unlawful arrest and detention. The plaintiff was restrained of her liberty by the defendants, who are her sister and her brother-in-law, and they procured her commitment to an. insane asylum. To justify their conduct and relieve them from legal responsibility, they were obliged to show that such circumstances existed as authorized them to apply restraint and institute proceedings for the commitment. Unless the record shows such circumstances, without any conflict of evidence, requiring the submission of disputed facts to a jury, the judgment cannot be sustained.
It was proven that on the 9th of December, 1895, at about six o’clock in the evening, the plaintiff, accompanied by her young daughter and a clergyman, appeared at the defendants’ house in the city of New York. Some conversation was had between the clergyman and the defendant, Mrs. Thorley, concerning the plaintiff’s condition. The clergyman was the pastor of a church in New Jersey, and the plaintiff, who resided in that State, was a member of his congregation. Previously, and on the seventh of December, the defendants had received a telegram sent from New Jersey by a physician, notifying them that the plaintiff was sick. After the plaintiff arrived at the defendants’ house on the night of the ninth of December, a telegram was received by Mrs. Thorley, signed “ J.
Those were the circumstances under which the plaintiff obtained shelter and protection in the defendants’ house. She came to it' without their invitation or suggestion, and they were ignorant before her arrival of her intention to visit them or of the purpose of any one to bring her to them. She was a widow, or a divorcee. She was received by the defendants and provision was made for her entertainment for the night. After retiring for a while to her room she left it in her nightdress, exhibiting signs of great fear or terror. She declared that there were persons concealed in her room and under her bed; that she was followed by a woman (who was not in the house), and showed unmistakably that she was laboring under delusions of persecution. During that night she made attempts to escape from her fancied pursuers by throwing herself from a window. It was only by the exertion of force by Mr. Thorley that she was overcome, and she ivas not quieted until her strength was exhausted. The testimony as to delusions of the plaintiff and her violent conduct comes from the defendants principally, but it is not denied by the plaintiff. Her testimony, carefully examined, only goes to the extent of declaring that she does not remember such occurrences as those sworn to by the defendants. It may be claimed that, as the evidence of the plaintiff’s conduct comes from interested parties, their credibility should have been submitted to the jury. Such is undoubtedly the general rule (Williams v. D., L. & W. R. R. Co., 155 N. Y. 158), but where there is corroboration of interested parties and no real conflict, the action of the court may be based on their testimony. (Anderson v. Boyer, 156 N. Y. 97.) In this case there was corroboration. It is contained in the testimony of Dr. Reid, who was called in by the defendants on the evening of the ninth. He was not a stranger to the plaintiff, but had frequently treated her as her physician. He observed on the night of the ninth the hallucinations of the plaintiff and her frenzied condition. Among other exhibitions of wildness he saw her go to the sick bed of the elder Mrs. Thorley, heard her declare that lady to be the
On this state of the evidence no other conclusion could be reached than that it was established that on the night of the 9th of December, 1895, this plaintiff was suffering from mental disbnrbance to the point of irresponsibility and that she was a dangerous person, liable to commit acts tending to injure herself, in her efforts to escape from fancied pursuers, and that in her condition danger might result to others from her insane promptings, were she not put under proper and reasonable restraint. Acting on the advice of Dr. Reid, and in consequence of what they had observed, the defendants determined to take the proceedings provided by law for placing the plaintiff in an asylum for care and treatment. They made attempts to find accommodations for her in such an institution in the city of Hew York, but were unsuccessful in their efforts. On the tenth of December they took the plaintiff in their own private carriage to the Bloomingdale Asylum, at White Plains, where she was examined by two physicians, examiners in lunacy not connected with the asylum, and upon the depositions of those physicians a j ustice of the Supreme Court approved the certificate under which she was detained in the asylum, where she remained for two or three weeks and was then released.
The acts of the defendants connected with the restraint and detention of the plaintiff are claimed by her counsel to be unlawful in two respects: First, in the conveyance of the plaintiff from the city of Hew York to the asylum at White Plains. Second, in instigating or procuring the so-called commitment of the plaintiff at White Plains. As to the first branch of the inquiry, the question is plainly presented of the legal responsibility of a private person,, acting of his own motion and without judicial warrant or process, for interfering with the liberty of another on an allegation of insanity. In such cases there is no justification for interference or restraint unless it is demanded by a real necessity for the care and safety of an individual dangerous to himself or for the protection of others, to whom he is or may be dangerous. Whoever, merely as a private person, applies such restraint must act upon facts and not upon suspicion • or belief. He may have to take the responsibility of his errors of judgment. But where the facts show the
Being justified in the temporary restraint imposed by reason of the plaintiff’s condition, it became the duty of the defendants at once to invoke the agencies established by law, for the care and protection of the insane, and to institute that proceeding which was required to authorize her further detention. That is exactly "what they did. They took the plaintiff to one of the most prominent hospitals or asylums for the insane in the country. There she was examined by two authorized examiners in lunacy, who certified that she was a lunatic who should be committed. A justice of the Supreme Court approved their certificate. The defendants were authorized to institute the proceeding — at their own peril if they had not real ground for it, but under the shield of the law, if they had. It was done under the permission of the statute. If the
There was nothing to go to the jury, and the judgment and order must be affirmed, with costs.
O’Brien, Ingraham and McLaughlin, JJ., concurred; Van-Brunt, P. J., dissented.
Judgment and order affirmed, with costs.