Court Opinion

ID: 9699088
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:10:00.328665+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:46.336568
License: Public Domain

Carter, J.,
dissenting.
In my opinion the judgment in this case should be reversed and the cause dismissed. I find no fault with the technical definitions of false arrest and false imprisonment set forth in the majority opinion. This dissent is directed at the failure of the majority to give consideration to the right of a storekeeper to protect his property and to reasonably detain a shoplifter or petty thief for the purpose of investigation. I submit that a detention to be unlawful must be unreasonable as to time and manner. The following text and case authorities sustain this position:
“Ordinarily, also, the owner of property, in the exercise of his inherent right to protect the same, is justified in restraining another who seeks to interfere with or injure it where the restraint or detention is reasonable in time and manner. In such cases, probable cause is a defense, even though the injury which is about to be inflicted constitutes only a misdemeanor, for it is the existence of reasonable grounds to suppose that one’s person or property is in danger which gives rise to the right of protection.” 22 Am. Jur., False Imprisonment, § 78, p. 408.
“Generally speaking, the owner may restrain one seeking to interfere with his property or to injure it without becoming liable for false imprisonment.” 35 C. J. S., False Imprisonment, § 14, p. 515.
The most cited case on this subject appears to be Collyer v. S. H. Kress & Co., 5 Cal. 2d 175, 54 P. 2d 20. The facts are almost identical with the present case. The store detective, a Mrs. Croswell, and her assistant *848saw the plaintiff pilfer' certain articles from a display counter. He was intercepted as he was leaving the store' and escorted back through the store to a room on the second floor for the purpose of investigation. He was ■ accused of pilfering the articles which he denied, claiming that he had paid for them. As here, he refused to sign a statement. The police were called and he was placed under arrest. His cause of action for false imprisonment was predicated on his detention from the time he was accosted near the store entrance to the time he was taken into custody by the police. In holding the detention not to have been unlawful as a matter of law, the court said: “* * * where a person has reasonable grounds to believe that another is stealing his property, as distinguished from those where the offense has been completed, that he is justified in detaining the suspect for a reasonable length of time for the purpose of investigation in a reasonable manner * * * must necessarily proceed upon the theory that probable cause is a defense. And this is the law because the right to protect one’s property from injury has intervened. In an effort to harmonize the individual right; to liberty with a reasonable protection to the person or property of the defendant, it should be said in such a charge of false imprisonment, where a defendant had probable cause to believe that the plaintiff was about to injure defendant in his person or property, even though such injury would constitute but a misdemeanor, that probable cause is a defense provided, of course, that the detention was reasonable. * * * What is probable cause, as has been often announced, is not a question of fact for the jury, but one of law for the court, to be decided in accordance with the circumstances at the time of the detention, unhampered by the outcome of the charge against the plaintiff of the public offense or by the conclusions of the trial court. * * * So determined, it appears from the record in this case that the defendants were not only justified in detaining plaintiff, but also, *849imder the evidence, would have been justified in arresting plaintiff under the authority of subdivision one of section 837 of the Penal Code.” Other cases supporting this view are: Swafford v. Vermillion (Okl.), 261 P. 2d 187; Banks v. Food Town, Inc. (La. App.), 98. So. 2d 719; Alterauge v. Los Angeles Turf Club, 97 Cal. App. 2d 735, 218 P. 2d 802; S. H. Kress & Co. v. Bradshaw, 186 Okl. 588, 99 P. 2d 508; Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Hinsdell, 76 Kan. 74, 90 P. 800, 12 L. R. A. N. S. 94; Shinglemeyer v. Wright, 124 Mich. 230, 82 N. W. 887, 50 L. R. A. 129; Sweeney v. F. W. Woolworth Co., 247 Mass. 277, 142 N. E. 50, 31 A. L. R. 311; Jacques v. Childs Dining Hall Co., 244 Mass. 438, 138 N. E. 843, 26 A. L. R. 1329; Fenn v. Kroger Grocery & Baking Co. (Mo.), 209 S. W. 885; Foulke v. New York Consolidated R. R. Co., 228 N. Y. 269, 127 N. E. 237, 9 A. L. R. 1384.
Under the foregoing authorities, and a consideration of all the evidence and circumstances, I submit that the detention of the plaintiff was reasonable as to time and manner and, consequently, not unlawful. It follows that plaintiff failed to make a case and that defendants’ motion for a directed verdict should have been sustained.
The effect of the majority opinion is to permit a shoplifter or petty thief to maintain an action for false arrest or false imprisonment irrespective of the rights of the owner of the property and the reasonableness of the detention. It permits such a plaintiff to go to the jury on the self-serving conclusions of the plaintiff that he was falsely arrested or falsely imprisoned, without a consideration of all the facts and circumstances shown by the record and the intervening rights of the store owner to protect his property. It leaves the store owner in the position where he subjects himself to an action for false arrest or false imprisonment if he undertakes to protect his property by detaining the shoplifter, however reasonable the detention or however great the *850probable cause shown. In my judgment this is not and ought not to be the law.
The defendants pleaded in their answer that they had reasonable grounds to justify themselves in detaining the plaintiff to investigate the wrongful taking of the company’s property, and that the facts and circumstances constituted probable cause for the investigation. The trial court did not submit this defense to the jury. The defendants assigned this as error. The majority opinion makes no reference to this assignment of error. I submit that the defendants are entitled to have this question answered, even though a retrial of the case is awarded. This court has consistently held that it is the duty of the trial court, without request, to properly instruct the jury upon all material issues presented by the pleadings and the evidence, including affirmative defenses, and that a failure to so do constitutes prejudicial error. Owen, Admr. v. Moore, 166 Neb. 226, 88 N. W. 2d 759. I submit that the trial court erroneously failed to submit defendants’ theory of the case' to the jury.
The trial court, by its instruction No. 5, instructed the jury that any arrest or detention of plaintiff’s person without his consent and against his will for any length of time constituted the elements to be proved to permit the recovery of a judgment. The jury was not told that the arrest or detention had to be wrongful or unlawful. This was clearly error prejudicial to the rights of the defendants. Under this instruction the plaintiff is permitted to recover even if the arrest and detention were lawful. This is plain error and we so held in Barton v. Wilson, 168 Neb. 480, 96 N. W. 2d 270, wherein we said: “The instructions do not define either positively or negatively, in the light of the evidence adduced on the trial, what would amount to false arrest or false imprisonment. From the instructions given the jury could not comprehensively determine the paramount issue in this case, that is, whether or not plaintiff was unlawfully arrested *851and detained by the defendants.” The giving of instruction No. 5 was assigned as error and not considered in the majority opinion.
For the reasons herein stated I respectfully but firmly insist that the majority opinion does not properly dispose of the appeal.
Chappell, J., concurs in this dissent.