Case Name: ALBERT LEE WALTON, Respondent, v. ARTHUR J. WILL et al., Defendants; HELEN RAMAGE et al., Appellants
Court: District Court of Appeal of the State of California
Jurisdiction: California
Decision Date: 1944-10-25
Citations: 66 Cal. App. 2d 509
Docket Number: Civ. No. 14418
Parties: ALBERT LEE WALTON, Respondent, v. ARTHUR J. WILL et al., Defendants; HELEN RAMAGE et al., Appellants.
Judges: 
Reporter: California Appellate Reports, Second Series
Volume: 66
Pages: 509–518

Head Matter:
[Civ. No. 14418.
Second Dist., Div. Two.
Oct. 25, 1944.]
ALBERT LEE WALTON, Respondent, v. ARTHUR J. WILL et al., Defendants; HELEN RAMAGE et al., Appellants.
J. H. O’Connor, County Counsel, Ernest Purdum, Deputy County Counsel, Ray L. Chesebro, City Attorney, Donald M. Redwine, Assistant City Attorney, and Lester L. Lev, Deputy City Attorney, for Appellants.
Albert D. White and Julian P. Van Dyke for Respondent.

Opinion:
WOOD (W. J.), J.
Plaintiff commenced this action to recover damages for false imprisonment, naming as party defendants Arthur J. Will, Superintendent of Charities of Los Angeles County, his assistant Lawrence C. Schreiber, the surety on their bonds, Helen Ramage, a social worker in the Department of Charities, and Police Officers Puissegur and Johnson. Judgment for $1,420 was entered against defendants Ramage and Puissegur only. Defendant Johnson was not served with process. The defendants against whom judgment was entered have appealed from the judgment and defendant Ramage has filed a purported appeal from the order denying her motion for a new trial.
A warrant was issued by the Municipal Court of the City of Los Angeles on January 21, 1935, for the arrest of one Albert Walton on the charge of failure to provide for his minor children. Defendant Ramage commenced work as a social worker for the county of Los Angeles in 1937. One of her duties was to attempt to locate parents who were not providing for their children. In performing this duty she followed instructions outlined in a manual of operations in use in the department. The warrant naming Albert Walton had not been served and defendant Ramage, in making inquiries concerning his whereabouts, received from the Department of Motor Vehicles a list of five persons named Albert Walton who had purchased motor vehicles. She eliminated three of these names and made inquiries concerning the Albert Walton who, according to notations on the list, lived at 119 Tichenor Street in Compton and who was purchasing an automobile through the Bank of America Trust and Savings Association. Early in March, 1942, she telephoned to the Bank of America at Compton and talked to someone whose name she did not obtain. She told the party at the bank the object of her caU and the information which she had in her office concerning the man named in the warrant. She testified at the trial that the person at the bank told her that the description "corresponded" with the man who was doing business at the bank. She then informed her superior in the office that she "had located the Albert Walton that fit the description of the man" sought and the warrant was placed in the hands of the police department for service.
Upon receipt of the warrant Officer Puissegur learned from the paper attached to the warrant and from a conversation with Mrs. Eisenberg, sister-in-law of the man named in the warrant, that Albert Walton was a printer whose last known address was at Palm Springs; that he was a man who could pass anywhere from thirty-five to fifty years of age; that his height was from five feet four inches to five feet eight inches; that he weighed about 140 pounds; that he was an Englishman; and that he had married a second time and that one child was born to the second wife. With this information Officer Puissegur went on March 5, 1942, to 119 Tichenor Street, Compton, placed plaintiff under arrest and took him to the jail, where he remained until his release on bail, a period of two days and three nights. When officer Puissegur notified plaintiff of his purpose to arrest him on the warrant plaintiff told him that he had lived in Compton for ten years continuously, that he had no minor children, his youngest child then being a man twenty-four years of age who was working with him at the "boat yards." He denied that he had ever lived in Palm Springs and stated that he did not know Mrs. Eisenberg. He stated that he was a painter and sixty-three years of age. When the officer asked him if he had had trouble with his wife he replied that he had and the officer asked him the whereabouts of his wife. Plaintiff replied : "She is living with her mother on Maple Street. If you will drive by there I can prove by her I am telling the truth." Officer Puissegur declined to take plaintiff to the Maple Street address. The reporter's transcript of the testimony taken on April 20, 1943, bears the following notation written by the trial judge in ink on the page in which the first part of plaintiff's testimony appears: "Said Albert Walton as he then appeared in court was approximately 5 feet 9 inches in height, approximately 165 pounds in weight; that he had blue eyes, light complexion, white hair, was 64 years of age, and his manner of speech was that of a native born American. ' '
The protection given officers of the law in serving a warrant of arrest is not unlimited. An officer is not discharged from liability if he fails to take precaution to ascertain if the person about to be arrested is the party against whom the warrant was issued or if he refuses to act upon information offered to him which would have disclosed that a mistake was being made by serving the warrant upon the wrong person. (22 Am.Jur. § 73, p. 405.) The duty unquestionably rests upon an officer to promptly execute a warrant but the officer also owes a duty to the public and to the party about to be arrested. If he carelessly arrests the. wrong party he is liable for the damages caused. "He should use prudence and diligence to find out if the party arrested is the party described in his warrant." (Miller v. Fano, 134 Cal. 103, 109 [66 P. 183].) Defendants rely upon Kalish v. White, 36 Cal.App. 604 [173 P. 494], a case in which a directed verdict for the defendant was upheld and in which the party arrested bore the same name as the party named in the warrant. It is important to note that the reviewing court, in upholding the action of the trial court, stated that "by inference it appears that he [the plaintiff] measured up to the furnished description as far as build, weight, complexion and nativity were concerned." It is also important to note that in the Kalish ease the court stated that, "a warrant is no defense to an officer who arrests and refuses to release the wrong person, although bearing the same name, where an investigation would have disclosed the fact of his innocence." (Clark v. Winn, 19 Tex.Civ.App. 223 [46 S.W. 915].)
In the ease now before us the description furnished Officer Puissegur measured up to the description of plaintiff as to complexion, but it varied widely in the description as to build, weight and nativity. Before Officer Puissegur arrested plaintiff he had been informed that he was to serve a warrant seven years old upon a printer last known to be a resident of Palm Springs, a man approximately five feet six inches tall, weighing approximately 140 pounds, approximately forty-three years of age and an Englishman by birth, a man who had married a second time with a child by the second wife. Instead of arresting a man who answered that description he arrested a painter who had never lived in Palm Springs but who had lived continuously for ten years in Compton, who was five feet nine inches tall, weighed 165 pounds, sixty-three years of age, and was an American by birth and speech, a man who had not married a second time. With these marked differences in the description of the man to be arrested and the man who was before him protesting his innocence and asserting that he had no minor children, the officer refused the simple and fair request of plaintiff that he be taken a very short distance from the most direct route from Compton to the jail, where he could establish his innocence by an interview with his former wife. Manifestly a very simple investigation would have disclosed to Officer Puissegur that he was arresting the wrong person. The trial court found that defendant Puissegur incarcerated plaintiff "wrongfully, carelessly and negligently." We are satisfied that the evidence is ample to sustain this finding.
Defendant Bamage is in a far different position from that of defendant Puissegur. She did not see plaintiff until after his release from the jail on bail. She took no part in his incarceration other than to furnish to her superiors in one of the county departments of Los Angeles County information which she had received on the telephone from someone in the Compton branch of the Bank of America. The warrant was thereafter sent by others in her office to the police department for execution. The fact that she notified another party in her own office that she "had located Albert Walton that fit the description ' ' of the man wanted did not make her responsible for the lack of diligence on the part of the arresting officer in arresting and detaining plaintiff, notwithstanding her report resulted in placing the warrant in the hands of the officer for execution. By our decision that defendant Bamage is not legally liable for damages suffered by plaintiff no commendation is intended for the inadequate investigation which she made to locate the man to be arrested.
The judgment against defendant Puissegur is affirmed. The judgment against defendant Bamage is reversed. Her purported appeal from the order denying the motion for a • new trial is dismissed.
McComb, J., concurred.