Several questions were raised at the trial of this case, upon which it seems to be unnecessary to express an opinion, inasmuch as we are satisfied that, on the facts offered to be proved, the defendant established a good defence to the action, and that the jury should have been instructed accordingly. There can be no doubt of the rule of law, that co-trespassers are jointly as well as severally liable for the damages occasioned by their wrongful acts; and, as a consequence of this, that a release to one joint trespasser, or satisfaction from him for the injury, discharges all. Brown v. Cambridge,
It cannot be denied that the parties who were plaintiffs in the original actions, in suing out their writs against the present plaintiff, and causing him to be arrested and imprisoned, acted separately and independently of each other, and without any apparent concert among themselves. As a matter of first impression, it might seem that the legal inference from this fact is, that the plaintiff might hold each of them liable for his tortious act, but that they could not be regarded as co-trespassers, in the absence of proof of any intention to act together, or of knowledge that they were engaged in a common enterprise or undertaking. But a careful consideration of the nature of the action, and of the injury done to the plaintiff for which he seeks redress in damages, will disclose the fallacy of this view of the case. The plaintiff alleges in his declaration that he has been unlawfully arrested and imprisoned. This is the wrong which constitutes the gist of the action, and for which he is
It does not in any way change or affect the injury done to the plaintiff, or enhance in any degree the damages which he has suffered, that the immediate trespassers, by whom the tortious act was done, were the agents of several different plaintiffs, who, without preconcert, had sued out separate writs against him. The measure of his indemnity cannot be made to depend on the number of principals, who employed the officers to arrest and imprison him. We know of no rule of law by which a single act of trespass, committed by an agent, can be multiplied by the number of principals who procured it to be done, so as to entitle the party injured to a compensation graduated, not according to the damages actually sustained, but by the number of persons through whose instrumentality the injury was inflicted. The error of the plaintiff consists in supposing that the several parties who sued out writs against him, and caused him to be arrested and imprisoned, cannot be regarded as co-trespassers, because it does not appear that they acted in concert, or knowingly employed a common agent. Such preconcert or knowledge is not essential to the commission of a joint trespass. It is the fact that they all united in the wrongful act, or set on foot or put in motion the agency by which it was committed, that renders them jointly liable to the person injured. Whether the act was done by the procurement of one person or of
These views have led us to the conclusion that the evidence offered at the trial by the defendant to show that the plaintiff had received full satisfaction for the arrest and false imprisonment to which he had been subjected, and for which he claimed Jamages in this action, from some of his creditors by whose order he was committed to jail, ought to have been admitted, an that the jury should thereupon have been instructed that th plaintiff could not maintain this action. Exceptions sustained.