Opinion ID: 1730360
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: instigation or participation by defendant.

Text: Defendant must have been the proximate and efficient cause of maliciously putting the law in motion in the original proceeding. The test of liability in an action for malicious prosecution is: Was defendant actively instrumental in putting the law in force? In order to sustain the action, it must affirmatively appear as a part of the case of the party demanding damages that the party sought to be charged was the proximate and efficient cause of maliciously putting the law in motion, and, if such fact appears, defendant is liable, although he did not actually make or sign the affidavit on which the warrant was issued, or although he was not the prosecutor of record. Mere passive knowledge of, or acquiescence or consent in, the acts of another is not sufficient to make one liable; in order to impose liability there must be some affirmative action by way of advice, encouragement, pressure, etc., in the institution, or causing the institution, of the prosecution, or in affirmatively encouraging its continuance after it has been instituted. Unsuccessful efforts to secure the institution of proceedings, however malicious or unfounded, are not actionable as malicious prosecution. No liability, as for malicious prosecution, attaches merely by reason of testifying as a witness for the prosecution, or by reason of the fact that one's name was indorsed on an indictment or signed to an information or  complainant prepared on an independent investigation by the prosecutor. So, also, the mere signing of an attachment bond as surety is not sufficient to subject one to the penalties of a malicious prosecution. A defendant who makes an affidavit on which a void search warrant is issued, but who neither delivers it to the officer nor directs it to be delivered, nor directs a search to be made, is not liable for the execution of the warrant. The fact that defendant went before the grand jury on process of the state, where it did not appear that he made any effort to procure the indictment, does not make him liable; but where, by means of a grand jury investigation, he corruptly or oppressively brought about the indictment and prosecution of another, maliciously and without probable cause, he is guilty of malicious prosecution the same as though he had sworn out a warrant in the first instance. (Hn 6) We have carefully examined the record in this case and we are of the opinion that the plaintiff wholly failed to meet the burden which the law casts upon him, in that he did not have any proof of want of probable cause. The defendant himself testified that he had no malice whatsoever toward the plaintiff and had never had any ill-feelings toward him. There is not one word of proof in the record to show to the contrary. We are therefore of the opinion that the judgment of the circuit court is correct and that the case should therefore be affirmed. Affirmed. Roberds, P.J., and Kyle, Holmes and Gillespie, JJ., concur.