Court Opinion

ID: 9834199
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:23:19.009638+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:12.715781
License: Public Domain

SMITH, Justice.
This is an action for damages for malicious prosecution brought by P. H. Wightman against Maytag Southwestern Company, a corporation. Wightman recovered judgment upon jury findings, and the corporation. has appealed.
The essential facts are undisputed. After two years in the service of appellant as a collector, appellee admittedly collected an item of $135 belonging to appellant, and failed to account to the latter therefor. When he made the collection, appellee, voluntarily and without explanation, left the service of appellant and disappeared. Some two months later, appellant discovered the defalcation, but took no steps to locate or pursue *714appellee. Shortly thereafter, however, ap-pellee reappeared, and called at appellant’s office for an accounting of commissions claimed to be due him, but left without offering any explanation of, or mentioning, the defalcation. Thereupon appellant’s then office manager, recently employed, who knew of the defalcation but did not know appel-lee, went before a proper officer and filed a complaint against appellee, charging him with the offense of embezzlement of over $50. The grand jury, upon investigation, “no-billed” appellee, who brought this action for malicious prosecution. The jury found that the “charge” against appellee was “false,” and that it was made without probable cause.
We are of'the opinion that both findings were without any support in the evidence. Appellee admitted that he collected $135 belonging to appellant, that he did not tender or pay it over to appellant, but, instead, disappeared without rendering any sort of accounting therefor. It is true that appellee sought to excuse .the offense of failure to account for the money collected by him and admittedly belonging to appellant, upon the ground of intoxication, and while the circumstances, as bearing upon intent, might have led a grand jury to ignore the offense, and a petit jury to acquit in a criminal trial therefor, those circumstances were certainly not such as'to meet the burden, in a civil action, of showing want of probable cause upon the part of appellant’s manager, a stranger to the accused, in instituting the prosecution upon his own motion.
Actions for criminal prosecution are not favored in the law, and recovery in such actions must be supported by more satisfactory evidence than mere conjecture and speculation,-such as that resorted to in this case. 18 R. C. L. p. 35, § 20; McManus v. Wallis, 52 Tex. 534; Glasgow v. Owen, 69 Tex. 167, 6 S. W. 527; Equitable, etc., Soc. v. Lester (Tex. Civ. App.) 110 S. W. 499.
The judgment is reversed, and judgment is here rendered that appellee take nothing And pay all costs.