FARISH
v.
SMOOT.
Supreme Court of Florida, en Banc.
*535 Paty, Warwick, & Paul and Farish, Farish, Downey & Anderson, all of West Palm Beach, for appellant.
Baynes, Garman & Phillips, West Palm Beach, for appellee.
SEBRING, Chief Justice.
The defendant below has appealed from a judgment entered in favor of the plaintiff in a suit brought to recover damages for false imprisonment.
The admitted facts of the case are that the defendant was the municipal judge of the City оf West Palm Beach. On August 12, 1949, the plaintiff was arrested by the City on a charge of violating a municipal ordinance. Trial on the charge was set for a later date and plaintiff was released from custody after posting with the municipal clerk a $500 cash bond conditioned that he appear at the trial. Thereafter, on August 15, 1949, the plaintiff voluntarily surrendered to the police authorities of the City and thereupon filed with the Circuit Court of Palm Beach County his petition for a writ of habeas cоrpus attacking the sufficiency of the warrant and the validity of the ordinance under which he had been arrested. On the same day the Circuit Judge issued a writ of habeas corpus wherein he set the following day as the day for a hearing on the merits of thе petition and ordered the release of the plaintiff from the custody of the municipal authorities upon his filing with the Clerk of the Circuit Court a bond in the sum of $500 payable to the Governor of Florida.
*536 Shortly after noon on the day the writ was issued, the city аttorney of West Palm Beach informed the city clerk by telephone that a writ of habeas corpus had been issued by the Circuit Judge conditioned upon the plaintiff's posting bond with the Clerk of the Circuit Court in the sum of $500. He advised the city clerk to release to the plaintiff the $500 in cash which had been deposited by him as an appearance bond in the municipal court proceeding. Immediately after this conversation the city clerk took the $500 to the office of the Clerk of the Circuit Court and deposited it there on behalf of the plaintiff to stand as a cash bond in the habeas corpus proceeding. Soon after the deposit was made the plaintiff was released by the police officials of West Palm Beach and went at large under the habeas corpus writ.
Later in the afternoon the municipal judge learned that the city clerk had released the appearance bond given to the City and that the plaintiff was not in custody. Thereupon, hе ordered the rearrest of the plaintiff upon the same charge as was the subject of the inquiry in the habeas corpus proceeding and directed that the plaintiff be taken into custody and retained until another appearance bond was posted with the City. Acting upon the order given by the municipal judge, the police officials immediately placed the plaintiff in jail, where he remained until the following morning.
Subsequently the plaintiff brought suit against the municipal judge and the arresting police officers; the gist of the charge being that the municipal judge had ordered the rearrest of the plaintiff, and the police officers had taken him into custody, with knowledge that plaintiff had been released on the habeas cоrpus bond by the Circuit Court; that as a consequence thereof the plaintiff had been "wrongfully, unlawfully, maliciously, wilfully and oppressively, without any reasonable or probable cause, and in utter disregard of [his] * * legal and constitutional rights, placed * * undеr arrest against his will and without legal process, and incarcerated * * * in the City jail of West Palm Beach, Florida * * *."
A trial on the issues made by the declaration and the pleas addressed thereto was had, resulting in a verdict of not guilty against the police officers and a verdict of guilty against the municipal judge. Motions for a new trial were denied and a judgment was entered against the judge. The judge has appealed from the judgment.
Many grounds are urged by the defendant for the reversal of the judgment. Most of them are based upon the contention that no evidence was adduced at the trial to show that the municipal judge, at the time he ordered the rearrest of the plaintiff, knew that the plaintiff was then entitled to be at liberty under the habeas corpus writ.
In respect to this contention, a careful review of the evidence shows that the municipal judge knew of the institution, pendency and purpose of the habeas corpus proceeding. The evidence also shows that prior to the rearrest of the plaintiff, the judge had been informed by the City Attorney that a hearing on the petition for the issuance of the habeas corpus writ had been held before the Circuit Judge and that a writ had been issued returnable thе following day. He had been informed by the City Attorney that a bond had been fixed in the habeas corpus proceeding in the sum of $500. He had been informed by the City Attorney of his conversation with the municipal clerk directing her to turn the $500 over to the clerk of the Circuit Court, so that the habeas corpus writ might be made effective. He had been informed by the Attorney "that Mrs. Gardner's office [the clerk's office] had gone to the Courthouse about that time with his [the plaintiff's] cash bond." He had been told by the City Attornеy "that the bond, as far as the City was concerned, was turned in when the Circuit Court bond was made and therefore, the City did not have any bond, but we were protected by the Circuit Court bond * * * that I did not think the City had any right to insist on another bond because there was a Cirсuit Court bond."
The evidence shows that after the municipal judge received this information he called Mrs. Gardner, the City Clerk, and was told by her that the bond posted with *537 the City had been taken down upon the instruction of the City Attorney. Although the avowed purpose of his call was to learn from her the facts and circumstances surrounding the releasing of the bond posted with the City, the municipal judge made no effort, according to his own testimony, to learn from the Clerk whether in pursuance of the instructions given hеr by the City Attorney she had in fact actually deposited the bond money with the Circuit Court Clerk as she had advised the City Attorney she intended to do immediately; the reason for his failure to ask the question of the clerk being, "I had no reason to ask her."
After these conversations with the City Attorney and Clerk, the municipal judge, without making further inquiry into the question whether the habeas corpus writ had become effective by the posting of a bond with the Clerk of the Circuit Court, ordered the rearrest of the plaintiff. Pursuant to this оrder the plaintiff was placed in jail, at a time when all jurisdiction of the municipal court over the subject matter of the charge and over the person of the plaintiff had in fact become suspended or superseded by virtue of the habeas corpus bond having been posted. See State ex rel. Gallat v. Allen,
Under these facts we think that the jury was fully warranted in finding that the defendant, with full knowledge of the facts, had wilfully ordered the rearrest of the plaintiff at a time when the plaintiff was lаwfully at large under a valid and effective writ of habeas corpus; for the picture presented by the evidence was that of a judicial officer who, though having eyes with which to see and ears with which to hear, wilfully failed and refused to inform himself fully in respect to the facts at a time when the slightest inquiry on his part would have revealed that the order he had determined to make would be in a case as to which he then had no jurisdiction, either as to the subject matter of the charge or the person of the accused, because of the issuance of the writ of habeas corpus and the filing of the bond upon which it was conditioned to become effective.
The rule is that whatever is sufficient to put a person on inquiry amounts in point of law to notice, provided the inquiry becomes a duty and could lead to a knowledge of the facts by the exercise of ordinary intelligence and understanding. Wherever facts put a person on inquiry, notice will be imputed to him if it is madе to appear that he has designedly abstained from inquiry for the purpose of avoiding notice. 66 C.J.S., Notice, § 10, p. 642. If facts with respect to his jurisdiction are brought to the attention of a judicial officer about which he can have no doubt, аnd he knows or is bound to know that on these facts the court over which he presides has no jurisdiction of the controversy, or of the person of the accused, he may well be held to proceed at his peril. See Telefsen v. Fee,
That a judge may be civilly liable for acts done without the scope of his jurisdiction is recognized in Beckham v. Cline,
The reason for the rule is stated in Cooley on Torts (3rd Ed.), pages 805, 806, as follows: "A judge is not such at all times and for all purposes: when he acts he must bе clothed with jurisdiction; and, acting without this, he is but the individual falsely assuming an authority he does not possess. The officer is judge in the cases in which the law has empowered him to act, and in respect to persons lawfully brought before him; but he is not judge when he аssumes to decide cases of a class which the law withholds from his recognizance, or cases between persons who are not, either actually or constructively, before him for the purpose."
It is next contended by the appellant that a judgment for punitive or exemplary damages cannot stand for the reason that personal malice on the part of the municipal judge toward the person arrested was not shown.
The answer to this contention is that malicе, as used in cases which allow recovery for exemplary damages where the imprisonment is actuated by malice, does not necessarily mean anger or a malevolent or vindictive feeling toward the plaintiff. A wrongful act without reаsonable excuse is malicious within the legal meaning of the term. See 22 Am.Jur., False Imprisonment, § 132, p. 439; also Anno.
It is contended by the appellant that certain charges given by the trial court to the jury were erroneous and hence that the judgment should be reversed and a new trial awarded. The general rule is that where it appears from the whole record that an alleged misleading charge could not have reasonably influenced the verdict to the injury of the party complaining a new trial on that ground should not be granted. Georgia Southern & F. Ry. Co. v. Hamilton Lbr. Co.,
All other contentions made by the appellant have been duly considered and are found to be without merit.
The judgment appealed from should be affirmed.
It is so ordered.
TERRELL, CHAPMAN, THOMAS, MATHEWS and HOBSON, JJ., concur.
ROBERTS, J., dissents.