126 Va. 384 | Va. | 1919
delivered the opinion of the court.
This writ of error brings up for review a judgment in favor of Andrew L. Norvell against Sands & Company, Incorporated, for $1,600 in an action for false imprisonment.
The verdict and judgment below having been for the plaintiff, the case,' except as to certain questions arising upon the instructions, comes to us as upon a demurrer to the evidence, and viewed thus the material facts may be briefly stated as follows: On the night of November 14, 1914, some person or persons broke into the store of Sands & Company at Monroe, in Amherst county, and took therefrom a quantity of valuable merchandise. J. A. Duncan, the local manager of the store thought he had reason to suspect Andrew L. Norvell, Pete Norvell, Clinton Stinnett and John Critzer, and accordingly procured warrants for all of them, charging them with grand larceny. Upon these warrants the two Norvells were arrested. It subsequently developed that Critzer was the guilty party. So far as this civil case is concerned, it will not be necessary
The warrants were issued by W. R. Watts, a justice of the peace for Amherst county, and'were delivered to C. W. Campbell, a constable of that county, and E. C. Rand, a special police agent of the Southern Railway Company, whose authority to act as an officer in the case, though somewhat questioned in the record before us, may be assumed without materially affecting our view of the case. Norvell resided at Monroe, but at the time of his arrest was off on a hunting trip at his father’s home some miles distant, and was there arrested by Campbell and Rand. The officers were accompanied by W. H. Cook, the district manager of Sands & Company, who had been sent for by Duncan to take charge of the prosecution. Cook was present at the time the arrest was made and continued thereafter to be an active participant in all that was done'in connection with the prosecution until Norvell, upon Cook’s direction, was discharged in the manner hereinafter appearing.
Norvell was arrested on the morning of November 19th, and was brought to Monroe about 11:00 o’clock that day, but there was no report of the arrest or return of the prisoner to the magistrate. Upon the contrary, Cook and Rand, who notwithstanding the presence of Campbell, during a part of the time, were really in charge of the entire proceeding, devoted their attention to an effort to get a confession from Norvell. Campbell left Monroe some time during the day and had no further connection with the case, Rand and Cook thereafter being constantly with the prisoner, except while he was in jail, until he was discharged.
In the meantime and shortly after noon on the day of the arrest, Norvell’s wife and mother and father arrived on
In the afternoon Norvell was compelled to suffer more or less discomfort by enforced exposure to cold during or pending the course of the series of interrogatories to which he was subjected by Rand and Cook, and he testified that during this exposure his feet were frostbitten. 1 He was kept at Monroe until about dark, and then Cook and Rand took him to Lynchburg where they had him locked up in a poorly furnished cell, and he passed the night there on a concrete floor. Cook and Rand went to the Carroll Hotel, where they spent the night.
On the following morning they brought Norvell from the jail to a restaurant where they gave him his breakfast, and then took him to the Carroll Hotel and further inter
Norvell was taken back to Monroe some time during the day after the arrest, and after being kept in the custody of Rand and Cook some time longer and required to go with them and look for the stolen articles, he was released. There was no trial, no hearing of any kind before the mag
Norvell had been an employee of the Southern Railway Company and was off on a short vacation when his arrest took place. There is much conflict of evidence on the point, and much of the argument before us orally and in the briefs centered around the question whether Norvell lost his position with the railway company by reason of this charge against him. Without going into the evidence in any detail it is sufficient to say that the jury would have been justified in finding as- a reasonable inference therefrom that Norvell did have a job with the railway company to which he could and would have returned but for this prosecution, and that he did. not return to it because the railway company declined on that account to accept him again in the service.
From the time the officers diverted their conduct from the mere keeping of the prisoner in custody in the due and regular course of delivering him to the justice of the peace, the detention was unlawful. There is much conflict in the evidence as to the extent of the mistreatment to which he was subjected, but upon the record before us there is no reason to differ upon the proposition that Cook and Band unlawfully detained this man from the afternoon of November 20th, to the afternoon of November 21st, subjected him to humiliation and exposure and other mistreatment not in any way warranted by the process which they held, carried him out of the jurisdiction of the magistrate, and required him to spend the intervening night in jail at Lynchburg.
It follows that the plaintiff is entitled to a recovery in this case, and the only question remaining to be determined is whether there was any error in the course of the trial with reference to instructions or other rulings which can be made the subject of a reversal.
The distinction sought to be made between this case and the case of Bolton v. Vellines—namely, that in the former there was and in the latter there was not any legal authority for what was done—cannot be maintained. The imprisonment complained of here, notwithstanding the validity of the original warrant was just as illegal and as devoid of warrant in law as the imprisonment in Bolton v. Vellines.
If the remarks of counsel here complained of had been ■of "sufficient gravity and materiality to plainly call for emphatic action by the court, the mere admonition “to the jury that they could try and determine the case only by the evidence introduced before them and not by argument
The judgment is affirmed.
Affirmed.