Opinion ID: 1775359
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: May Plaintiffs Recover for False Arrest or False Imprisonment?

Text: The controlling issue on appeal is whether Achee's actions as outlined above present a factual dispute as to whether Achee procured or instigated Phillips' arrest. Phillips and Godines suggest the controlling issue is whether Achee had probable cause to effectuate the arrest. Brief for Appellants at 9. They cite Southwest Drug Stores of Mississippi, Inc. v. Garner, 195 So.2d 837 (Miss. 1967), supporting its premise that probable cause is a question of fact negating summary judgment. Garner, however, involved a statutory privilege to detain persons suspected of shoplifting when detained on probable  cause. There, the Court held that under the circumstances the trial court correctly left the question of probable cause to the jury. The distinction the Bank and Achee draw is that Garner involved physical detention by the store manager. Thus, without question the manager caused the detention. To the same effect are Jarjoura v. Fred's One & Two Dollar Store, Inc., 370 So.2d 696 (Miss. 1979), and Butler v. W.E. Walker Stores, Inc., 222 So.2d 128 (Miss. 1969). Jarjoura and Butler also stand for the proposition that probable cause means more than mere suspicion or conjecture. Jarjoura, 370 So.2d at 698-99. However, this Court has acknowledged that before a person may be held liable for causing false imprisonment through false arrest, that person must have personally and actively participated therein directly or by indirect procurement. Smith v. Patterson, 214 Miss. 87, 93, 58 So.2d 64, 66 (1952). See Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts 52 (5th Ed. 1984). Procurement is not broadly defined, however. Again in Patterson, the Court, quoting from American Jurisprudence, stated: Where a person merely directs the attention of a public officer to what he supposes to be a breach of the peace and the officer, without other direction, arrests the offender on his own responsibility, the person who did nothing more than to communicate the facts to the officer is not liable for causing the arrest, even though it is made without a warrant. If the arrest is made without the knowledge and consent of such person, there is no liability. Id. at 94, 58 So.2d at 66. In Patterson the Court upheld a peremptory instruction in favor of defendant, who merely asked police officers to go to a cafe and determine the identity, address and place of employment of a man who had given defendant a bad check. The officers did not intend to arrest the plaintiff, but did so after plaintiff refused to cooperate. The Court held the evidence insufficient to establish that defendant directly or indirectly procured the arrest. In Lenaz v. Conway, 234 Miss. 231, 105 So.2d 762 (1958), the Court upheld a jury verdict for defendant on conflicting evidence of whether defendant caused a warrantless arrest. The defendant's proof at trial was that he merely related facts without any other direction to police. The Court cited Patterson, supra . This Court's opinion in Patterson and Lenaz seem to follow the general law. See generally, Annot. 21 A.L.R.2d 643, 694 § 23 (1952 & Supp. 1987). Restatement (Second) of Torts § 45A states: One who instigates or participates in the unlawful confinement of another is subject to liability to the other for false imprisonment. In comment c the Restatement authors explain what amounts to instigation: Instigation consists of words or acts which direct, request, invite or encourage the false imprisonment itself. In the case of an arrest, it is the equivalent, in words or conduct, of Officer, arrest that man! It is not enough for instigation that the actor has given information to the police about the commission of a crime, or has accused the other of committing it, so long as he leaves to the police the decision as to what shall be done about any arrest, without persuading or influencing them. Thus, the major question is whether Achee's actions were the equivalent, in words or conduct, of stating, Officer, arrest that man! See Howell v. Viener, 179 Miss. 872, 176 So. 731 (1937) (defendant called on police to arrest plaintiff and charged him with being a counterfeiter). First Guaranty and Achee cite Pokorny v. First Federal Savings & Loan Association, 382 So.2d 678 (Fla. 1980), where the Florida Supreme Court upheld a jury verdict for defendant under a similar factual setting of employees reporting a suspected attempted robbery. The Court held: In the case sub judice, the evidence does not show that defendant's employees at any time detained either of the plaintiffs. Nor does the record show that the employees of the defendant ever requested the F.B.I. to arrest either of the plaintiffs.  The defendant's employees reported a possible attempted robbery and identified plaintiffs as the suspects. As long as the employees acted reasonably, their action did not constitute direct procurement of an arrest as set forth... . Id. at 682. The policy behind such a rule is the encouragement of citizen involvement in reporting crime, the Florida Court noted, Id. at 682, but the Court's qualification that the employees acted reasonably suggests that procurement might hinge on some reasonableness of the employee's actions. The Florida District Court of Appeals suggested that false information maliciously supplied might give rise to an action for unlawful arrest. See Erp v. Carroll, 438 So.2d 31, 41 (Fla.Ct.App. 1983). At least one court requires that a person giving information to police act reasonably under the facts then known or readily available to him. Deadman v. Valley National Bank of Arizona, 154 Ariz. 452, 461, 743 P.2d 961, 970 (1987). What amounts to instigation depends on the facts and the inferences to be drawn therefrom in each particular case. See Thurman v. Cundiff, 2 Kan. App.2d 406, 580 P.2d 893, 897 (1978). While merely providing accurate information to police may not be instigation, knowingly giving false information may be an attempt to influence the officer's judgment in deciding whether to effect an arrest. This may be enough to hold the informer liable. See Ginn v. Citizens & Southern National Bank, 145 Ga. App. 175, 178, 243 S.E.2d 528, 531 (1978); Garner v. Texas Discount Gas Co., 723 S.W.2d 446, 447 (Mo. Ct. App. 1987); Powers v. Carvalho, 117 R.I. 519, 368 A.2d 1242, 1248 (1977); 1 F. Harper, F. James & O. Gray, The Law of Torts § 4.11 at 512-13 (2d ed. 1986). The Bank and Achee rely on Vickers v. First Mississippi National Bank, 458 So.2d 1055, 1061 (Miss. 1984), for the premise that only material factual disputes negate summary judgment. From the foregoing, they suggest that there is no material factual dispute concerning Achee's good faith delivery of information to police, acted upon by the police, without a request to have Phillips arrested. Here, however, Achee gave to police a code for reporting an armed robbery in progress when Phillips was attempting nothing of the kind. Achee went further and followed Phillips outside and pointed at him as the suspect when police arrived. The Arizona court held a jury question was framed under very similar circumstances in Deadman v. Valley National Bank of Arizona, supra . We think, at least as to Phillips, granting summary judgment on the question of instigation was premature. Likewise, judgment on the assault and battery and slander claims seems premature, since both are tied in some respect to the false arrest claim. While Achee's involvement in Godines' arrest is more tenuous, we likewise think summary judgment as to Godines' claims was premature. Our opinion should not be taken as intimating a suggested disposition upon remand. All we hold is that material factual disputes remain with regard to the issue of whether Achee and, vicariously, First Guaranty, instigated Phillips' and Godines' detention. Having reviewed the record as submitted from the Circuit Court of Harrison County, and having found error therein the summary judgment rendered below on April 21, 1986, was erroneous; accordingly, this case is reversed and this case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. REVERSED AND REMANDED. ROY NOBLE LEE, C.J., HAWKINS, P.J., and PRATHER, ROBERTSON, SULLIVAN, ANDERSON and ZUCCARO, JJ., concur. GRIFFIN, J., not participating.