Opinion
No. 34667.
October 13, 1941. Suggestion of Error Overruled October 27, 1941.
1. FALSE IMPRISONMENT.
If employees of defendant corporation brought about alleged false arrest and imprisonment of plaintiff, the corporation was not liable for arrest and imprisonment unless employees had authority to act for corporation with respect to procuring plaintiff's arrest.
2. APPEAL AND ERROR.
In action for false arrest and imprisonment, where plaintiff testified on cross-examination, without objection, that she had taken charge of a business because plaintiff's husband was in federal penitentiary serving a sentence for violation of navigation laws, permitting defendants to introduce, over plaintiff's objection, certified copies of record of husband's conviction for violating immigration laws, was not reversible error, notwithstanding that husband was not a party to or witness in action.
APPEAL from the circuit court of Harrison county, HON. L.C. CORBAN, Judge.
Bidwell Adams and White Morse, all of Gulfport, for appellant.
It was error to instruct the jury for appellee that the agents, officers and attorneys of appellee in causing the arrest and imprisonment of appellant, in order to bind appellee for their acts, must have had specific and real authority from Standard Oil so to do.
Wilcox v. Williamson, 61 Miss. 310; State v. McDaniel, 78 Miss. 1; A. V.R.R. v. Kuhn, 78 Miss. 114; Walters v. Stonewall Cotton Mills, 136 Miss. 361; Howell v. Viener, 179 Miss. 878; Burhardt v. United Investment Co., 35 A.L.R. 654, 657; Neollus v. Hutchinson Amusement Co., 55 A.L.R. 1191 and note, 25 C.J. 469, 25 C.J. 497, 25 C.J. 500, 502; Jackson v. American Tel. Tel. Co., 70 L.R.A. 738 (N.C.).
In an effort to defeat the suit of Mrs. Anticich, for the assault on her, the Standard Oil Company asked and was permitted to show, over objection of appellant, that her husband violated the Immigration Laws of the United States. He was at no time a witness in the case. Such testimony only tended to seriously prejudice the jury against appellant. Does Greg Anticich's conviction for violation of a Federal law authorize and justify Standard Oil to have his wife beaten up, arrested and imprisoned? George R. Smith, of Gulfport, Rushing Guice, of Biloxi, and Lyell Lyell, of Jackson, for appellees.
We are unable to find in the record any instruction containing the phraseology complained of by appellant under this assignment; to the contrary we submit the instructions complained of were properly granted and state the law as the same has been repeatedly held in Mississippi.
The statement of the appellant that these men were general agents is not borne out by any of the evidence in the record.
See Tarver v. Sanders Cotton Mill Company, 192 So. 17; Russell v. Palatine Insurance Company, 106 Miss. 290, 63 So. 644; Fisher v. Westmorland, 101 Miss. 180, 57 So. 553; Harris v. Simms, 134 So. 325, 155 Miss. 207; Forsythe v. Ivy, 139 So. 615, 162 Miss. 471.
The court did not err in admitting the evidence as to the conviction of appellant's husband, Greg Anticich. Appellant without objection by her counsel admitted such conviction.
The appellant, in her brief, has given the court no authority for the question, and we believe this is due to the fact that there is no authority on this question supporting appellant, and also because it has been recognized from time immemorial that a person has a right to challenge the credibility of a witness by disproving statements made by the witness while testifying.
Argued orally by W.H. White, for appellant, and by Garland Lyell and George R. Smith, for appellee.
Appellant sued the Standard Oil Company of Kentucky, a corporation, and four of its employees for false arrest and imprisonment. The arrest and imprisonment were at the hands of the police of Biloxi. Appellant charged that these employees, or some of them, instigated and procured such action by the police, with authority to represent the corporation. The jury decided both questions against appellant. A careful review of the record convinces us that no jury could reasonably have found otherwise. This renders it unnecessary that we consider any assignment of error other than wrongful admission of testimony, if any, which bears on these questions, for regardless whether such arrest and imprisonment were lawful or unlawful, the defendants are not liable if they did not bring it about, and the corporation is not liable if such employees, or any of them, did in fact bring it about, unless that person had authority to act for the corporation.
Appellant earnestly insists that proof by appellees of a criminal conviction of the husband of appellant, the husband being neither a party to, nor a witness in, the case, was reversible error. That conviction was shown under these circumstances: During her cross-examination appellant stated that in 1923 or 1924 she took charge of the business in which both she and her husband were financially interested. She was asked why she did that, and replied that it was because her husband was absent in the Federal Penitentiary at Atlanta, serving a nine months term for violating the navigation laws. No objection was made either to the questions or the answers. Later in the trial the defendants introduced certified copies of the record of a conviction of the husband for violating the immigration laws of the United States, and sentence of thirteen months in the Federal penitentiary. Objection was made to this.
Aside from whether this testimony was competent to contradict appellant, or had bearing upon the probability of a breach of the peace by appellant and her husband, justifying the police in arresting appellant, or whether it bore upon the damage to the business of appellant, both questions being issues in the case, it could not be reversible error, if error at all, as to these defendants because (1) it had no bearing either upon the authority of any employee, or whether any employee did in fact instigate and procure such arrest through the police of Biloxi, and (2) even though it had such bearing, it is not perceived why any greater weight would be given by the jury to proof of violation of the immigration laws, admitted over objection, than would be given to proof of violating the navigation laws, admitted without objection.
Affirmed.