Court Opinion

ID: 9777763
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:23:44.055037+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:34.469598
License: Public Domain

BLACKMAR, Judge,
concurring in result.
I agree that the judgment should be reversed and the case remanded for new trial.
Judge Welliver soundly traces the history of malicious prosecution actions in Missouri, and convincingly demonstrates that the instruction approved as MAI 16.01, proceeding from the law applied in defamation cases, “does not require the jury to find that the defendant acted with an improper purpose.” I agree that more rigorous standard should be applied to malicious prosecution cases.
The extensive quotations in the principal opinion simply show that other courts have struggled with the problems inherent in suits for malicious prosecution and related actions, but give very little guidance to counsel as to the kind of instruction which will be approved. The several expressions are not wholly consistent. Inasmuch as this Court freely prescribes instructions to be used in civil cases, I believe that we should do so in this one. The Court, with the help of the MAI Committee, may of course make future revisions and amendments as may be necessary or desirable.
I.
If Judge Gunn is correct in his conclusion that plaintiff failed to make a submissible case under the presently prevailing law there would be no need to go into detail about appropriate instructions for future cases. I am inclined to believe, however, that the jury could have found that the defendant’s agents led the prosecutor to believe that they could produce evidence to support charges against each of the seven suspects, with reference to their individual tool boxes, when the agents knew that the tools had been commingled before any inventory was taken. Prosecutor, now judge, Hamilton testified as follows:
CROSS-EXAMINATION
Q Okay. What information was it that they had given you for probable cause to believe that Robert Sanders and the other 6 crew members had committed the crime of attempted theft?
A Well, they indicated that the tools from the tool box that had been broken into were found in the gang number 52 gang box and also in the individual boxes in that gang box. And these were the 7 individuals whose names were given to me as being on crew number 52.
* * * # * *
REDIRECT EXAMINATION
Q Mr. Hamilton, if there had been stolen tools in each of the individual tool boxes, you could have proceeded with the trial and prosecuted them without confessions; isn’t that true?
* * * * * *
A If there had been stolen tools that were identifiable in each of the individual tool boxes, I think that’s correct.
Q You could have proceeded and then you wouldn’t have needed the confessions?
A That’s right.
*817The portions of the witness’s examination quoted by Judge Gunn do not destroy the effect of this testimony.
There would remain, under the new standard proposed in the principal opinion, the question of the intent of the defendant’s agents. I agree with the statement in the principal opinion that “conduct which is so reckless or wantonly and willfully in disregard of one’s rights that a trier of fact could infer from such conduct bad faith or malo animo” is within the concept of legal malice. The plaintiff should have the opportunity for a new trial under the revised standard. There is also the possibility of additional evidence, and of argument about the permissible inferences from all the evidence directed to the revised standard.
II.
Although I do not disagree with the statement in Restatement of Torts (Second) § 668 (1965), that “To subject a person to liability for malicious prosecution, the proceedings must have been initiated primarily for a purpose other than that of bringing an offender to justice,” this statement hardly serves as a definition of malice and I do not believe that it should be the subject of a verdict-directing instruction or an essential definition. The instructions, rather, should speak in affirmative terms as to what the plaintiff must show. Section 668 speaks of the conduct which will not give rise to liability but is silent as to the showing which the plaintiff must make. I believe that it would serve the purpose of revised Missouri law as enunciated in the principal opinion if MAI 23.07 were left intact and if an instruction in the following terms were substituted for the required definition of “maliciously,” now found in MAI 16.01, in malicious prosecution cases:
The term “maliciously” as used in this (these) instruction(s) means acting intentionally with an improper or wrongful motive, or consciously acting with wanton disregard for the rights of others.
Just as with MAI 16.01, the definition could be built into MAI 23.07 or made the subject of a separate instruction.
If this were done then juries would be appropriately instructed as to the mental state required of the defendant. No longer would we have a situation in which the defense of malice “does not indicate to the jury that the defendant had to have acted with the requisite culpable mental state.” There may be speculation regarding the appropriateness of the continued use of MAI 16.01 in other actions in which malice is in issue. It would be inappropriate for us to extend our present holding to cases other than malicious prosecution cases, but counsel might consider a conservative approach in the definition of malice, in possibly anticipating further reexamination of the prevailing standard.
III.
I also agree that there is a need to modify the present MAI 10.01 as to the allowance of punitive damages in malicious prosecution cases. Although it might have been thought that a verdict for the plaintiff in a malicious prosecution case necessarily connoted entitlement to punitive damages, in the discretion of the jury, there is clear precedent for a contrary holding in Rustici v. Weidemeyer, 678 S.W.2d 762 (Mo. banc 1984), which held that a defendant might recover actual damages in a claim for false arrest without being entitled to submit punitive damages.
The instruction recommended in the principal opinion1 is unduly restrictive, and does not give plaintiffs the alternatives, found in the model from which it was taken, of demonstrating that the defendant’s act was “wantonly” or “oppressively” done. I would hesitate to hold that a plaintiff must necessarily demonstrate “personal hatred, spite or ill will.” The focus rather should be on a purpose of causing harm. I would commend for malicious prosecution cases an instruction in lieu of the present MAI 16.01, in the following language:
*818If you find the issues in favor of plaintiff, and if you believe the conduct of defendant as submitted in Instruction Number _ (here insert number of plaintiffs verdict directing instruction) was willful or wanton and was wrongfully done for the purpose of causing injury, then in addition to any damages to which you find plaintiff entitled under Instruction Number_(here insert number of plaintiffs damage instruction), you may award plaintiff an additional amount as punitive damages in such sum as you believe will serve to punish defendant and to deter him and others from like conduct.
This plaintiff, under the evidence, should have the opportunity to submit the issue of punitive damages under the revised instruction. I cannot say that a jury could not find ⅛ wrongful intent to cause injury.
For the reasons stated, I concur in the result reached by the principal opinion.
Inasmuch as these views do not commend the support of a majority of the Court, counsel will have to proceed as best they can in the framing of instructions, with no assurance my suggestions will be ultimately approved. This task is difficult when counsel are not required to make specific objections to the substance of instructions, and so lawyers will have to get along as best they can in the position in which the majority opinion leaves them.

. 3 Devitt and Blackmar, Federal Jury Practice and Instructions, 3d Ed., § 85.11.