139 Mich. 188 | Mich. | 1905
The defendants were respectively chief of police and mayor of the city of Lansing. The plaintiff recovered a verdict and judgment for $100 against them, and they have brought the case to this court by writ of error.
The action was for false imprisonment, based upon an arrest and detention of the plaintiff by the police, under directions of the defendants. The record shows that the plaintiff was a motorman upon a street car operated upon the streets of Lansing. There was proof tending to show, and the court charged the jury, that the overhead system of the street railway was so out of repair as to be dangerous to persons and horses using the streets, owing to the frequent falling of the wires, and that it was a public nuisance. The common council had, by resolution, so declared it, and directed that it be abated. There was evidence to the effect that the running of trolley cars increased the danger by causing the wires to break and fall. The mayor thereupon gave notice to the railway company that it must cease running cars while the wires remained in this dangerous condition. The cars were stopped, and did not run again that day. Some of the feed wires were
1. That the court should have directed a verdict for the defendants.
2. That, if not, the cause should have been left to the jury upon the question of plaintiff’s right to recover.
The testimony conclusively shows that the defendants took the cranks or controllers used in starting plaintiff’s car, a.nd that without them he could not have afterwards started the car. Notwithstanding this, they took plaintiff into custody and detained him at the police station for several hours, in a vain attempt to secure a promise that
The defendants seek to justify their action upon the ground that the condition of the overhead construction of the street railway line was a public nuisance, in that it was a menace to persons using the highway, and that it was the defendants’ duty, both by virtue of their office, and by reason of the action of the common council which had declared it a nuisance, to abate the danger by preventing the operation of cars until the wire should be replaced by new. Defendants had forbidden and prevented the railroad company from making temporary repairs, being apparently of the opinion that they would be ineffective.
The condition of the wire was not admitted to be so bad as to make the same a nuisance, and it is not clear that the judge was justified in instructing the jury that it was a nuisance; but these defendants cannot complain of such instruction, for the reason that it is what they claimed, and was distinctly favorable to them. Apparently the judge chose to eliminate that question, in view of his intention to direct a .verdict for plaintiff.
The undisputed facts in the case are that the defendants
We think it was not error to allow the plaintiff to state that he felt humiliated by the arrest. It was not error to exclude evidence that subsequently he was complimented by his employer for his effort'to run the car. Neither was it error to exclude evidence that it was the custom to search prisoners, which custom was not followed in this case. The court was justified in saying that there was no evidence tending to show that plaintiff resisted an officer.
In the course of his instructions, the court said to the
“ The sense of shame and mortification, of wrong and of outrage, for which the plaintiff may recover, is not limited to the actual time he was under restraint, but includes all such sense of shame, mortification, wrong, and outrage as it can be said the average man under like circumstances might have expected to experience for all time, arising from such arrest and detention as has been shown. No witness has placed a money standard on injured feelings, humiliation, sense of outrage, and mental suffering arising from an unlawful arrest and imprisonment, and no witness can do so. To do that is solely your province. The law has no other remedy for an action for wrong than to compensate, so far as it can by way of money, for the injury done by one man to another. The facts and circumstances surrounding the doing of the unlawful act areto.be considered by you, and you are to consider as best you can, from all the evidence, what sense of shame, mental suffering, humiliation, and sense of outrage the average man under similar circumstances might reasonably be expected to sustain, and award the plaintiff the amount thereof as his damages in this case. ”
It is insisted that the measure of damages should not have been what the average man would suffer under the same circumstances, but what the plaintiff had suffered. Undoubtedly the latter is the rule, but in this case there is nothing to indicate that this plaintiff suffered less than the average man, and no injury is discernible from the instructions. We fail to discover any unfairness in the charge.
The judgment is affirmed.