Case ID: h-mch_3/html/0439-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

GENERAL COURT,
    MAY TERM, 1796.
    Edward Queen against John Ashton.
    THIS was an appeal from Prince George’s county court from a judgment in favour of Ashton, the defendant in that court, rendered at April term, 1796. It was an action of assault and battery and false imprisonment. The declaration states, that “ the said J. on the 15th of October, 1791, at the county aforesaid, with force and arms, on him the said E. an assault did make, and him did then and there beat, wound and imprison, and ill treat; and him, the said E. there in prison, without any reasonable cause, and against the law of this stafe, a long time, to wit, for the space of three years thence next ensuing, did detain, until the said E. expended and laid out, and was obliged and compelled to expend and lay out, several large sums of money for his deliverance from the arrest and imprisonment aforesaid ; and him the said E. in the service of him the said J. by duress, as aforesaid, for a long time, to wit, from the 15th of October, 1791, until the 18th of May, 1794, did keep and detain.” The defendant pleaded not guJty, and limitations. Verdicts for the defendant.
    
    1. At the trial of the cause, the plaintiff, by his counsel, prayed the direction of the court, and their opinion to the jury, that the present suit is proper and competent in form, in point of law, to enable the plaintiff to recover damages, if the jury should be of opinion, from the testimony in the cause, that the defendant, without legal authority, detained the plaintiff in his service as stated in the declaration; which opinion and direction the court (being divided in opinion) refused to give. The plaintiff excepted.
    
      3. Then the defendant, by his counsel, prayed the court to direct the jury, that if they are of opinion, from the evidence, that the plaintiff was held as a slave by the defendant prior to the 15th of October, 1791, that the plaintiff, being then held and possessed as a slave by the defendant, petitioned for his freedom to the general court on that day, and that the unlawful imprisonment and detention stated in the declaration, consisted in the said plaintiff’s being kept and detained in possession of the defendant as a slave as aforesaid from the commencement of the said petition to the time of the plaintiff’s being freed and discharged from the service of the defendant by the judgment of the general court, that then the plaintiff is not entitled to recover in the action now brought. This direction, the court (being divided in opinion) refused to give, and the defendant excepted.
   The plaintiff appealed to the general court; which court affirmed the judgment of the county court on both exceptions.

The appellant appealed to the court of appeals where the cause abated at June term, 1798, by the death of the appellee.