Kahului Railroad v. Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co.
Kahului Railroad v. Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co.
Opinion of the Court
OPINION OP THE COURT BY
Plaintiff’s petition follows tbe statutory outline prescribed in oases of unliquidated demands, and claims actual aud exemplary damages against defendant for a trespass quare clausum fregit, laid witb a continuando.
“And plaintiff further charges and says that .the defendant corporation on the 7th day of March, 1898, by the fraudulent suppression and omission of material facts, obtained a temporary injunction from a circuit judge of the Circuit Court enjoining the plaintiff from interfering with or preventing said trespasses by defendant upon said right cf way of the plaintiff with the purpose and intention of preventing the plaintiff from resisting or objecting to defendant’s continuous trespass as aforesaid upon the right of way and property aforesaid of plaintiff.”
This is followed by allegations of special damage, the malicious character of defendant’s acts, and the general damage suffered by plaintiff, concluding with a pirayer for- process.
The defendant interposed a demurrer, assigning as grounds therefor,—First, that several causes of action have been improperly united; Second, that the said complaint does not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action; Third, that the said complaint is uncertain.
The case comes up on exceptions to an order overruling the demurrer.
The second ground of demurrer assigned was not relied upon by counsel, and is treated as abandoned. It is contended the averment as to procuring a temporary injunction sets forth a cause of action in case, and, if regarded as a part of the count in trespass, makes the pleading double; or if held to constitute a separate count, violates the rule of common law pleading against the joinder of two different forms of action in the same declaration.
It is an old principle of the common law that ’'if a party falsely and maliciously : nd without probable cause put the law in motion, that is properly a subject of an action on the case.” (Clossum vs. Staples, 42 Vt. 210, 216; Churchill vs. Siggers,
As stated by Granger, C. J., in Newark Coal Co. vs. Upson, (p. 25):
“It may now be considered tbe approved doctrine, that an action for tbe malicious prosecution of a civil suit may be maintained, whenever, by virtue of any order or writ, issued in tbe malicious suit, tbe defendant in that suit has been deprived of his personal liberty, or of tbe possession, use, or enjoyment of property of value. Tbe name or form of the writ, or process, is immaterial. It may be an order of arrest, or of attachment, or of injunction.”
And it is equally settled that a distinct action lies for the malicious misuse, or abuse of process. Granger vs. Hill, 4 Bing. N. C. 212; Mayer vs. Walter, 64 Pa. St. 283; Kennedy vs. Barnett, 64 Pa. St. 141; Doctor vs. Riedel, 96 Wis. 158; Whitten vs. Bennett, 86 Fed. R. 405; 13 Enc. Plead. & Prac. 433; 1 Williams, Notes, to Saunder’s Rep. 269-270; Cooley on Torts, 189.
Fraudulently procuring a temporary injunction whereby a party is kept out of tbe enjoyment of bis property, or otherwise injured, is rather a misuse than abuse of process. Mayer vs. Walter, supra; Doctor vs. Riedel, 96 Wis. at 163. But it is clear that if done maliciously and to tbe damage of tbe opposite party, case lies therefor. It does not follow, however, from this condition of tbe substantive law that defendant’s objections to tbe petition in tbe present case are well taken.
Tbe rule is well established that tbe action of trespass qua/re clausum fregit may embrace tbe circumstances which accompany. and give character to tbe trespass, irrespective of whether or not such circumstances, or any of them, might be tbe subject of a substantive cause of action. 1 Sutherland on Damages,
“Supposing that the matter will admit of both a general and particular mode of description, then, if in the form in which it is alleged, the plaintiff will not be entitled to claim a "compensation for it as a separate grievance, it must be considered as having been inserted to increase the damages; as where the
If however, the defendant chooses to demur, as in the present instance, instead of treating the additional matter as charged by way of aggravation in the manner last suggested, he should again, in the interest of certainty of pleading, be given the benefit of the doubt, and if there is nothing in the language of the declaration indicating that such matter was inserted solely for the purpose of increasing the damages, it is to be regarded as constituting a cause of action distinct from the main trespass, and subject to all those rules of pleading designed to produce singleness or unity in the issue.
The question to be decided in this case is, therefore, whether the clause in the petition, relating to the procuring of a temporary injunction by defendant, is to be treated as settr forth a cause of action in case separate from the trespasses charged.
The authorities are not uniform in declaring what constitutes the essential elements of an action for misuse or abuse of process, but, with a single exception, they are agreed that malice is one of them.
A precedent for the form of declaration in an action for maliciously procuring a capias, &c, is given in 2 Chitty on Plead. (16 Am. Ed.) 552:
“For that the defendant having commenced an action against*744 the plaintiff in. the court of * * * at Westminster, maliciously and falsely represented by means of a false affidavit to one of the judges of said court that the plaintiff was about to quit England unless forthwith apprehended, and thereby maliciously and without reasonable or probable cause, obtained from the said judge an order directing the plaintiff to be held to bail for the sum of £-, and thereupon and in pursuance of the said order, the defendant caused to be issued out of the said court, a writ of capias directed to the said sheriff of * * * * , whereby the said sheriff was commanded,” etc.
And some such form of averment is to be found in the analogous cases of maliciously and fraudulently suing out an attachment, injunction, summons, &c., Antcliff vs. June, 81 Mich. 477; Newark Coal Co. vs. Upson, 40 Ohio St. 17, 21; Storz vs. Finkelstein. 48 Neb. 27; s. c., 66 N. W. R. 1020; Abohosh vs. Buck, 43 S. W. R. 425; Whitten vs. Bennett, 86 Fed. R. 405.
A declaration which alleged that defendant without reasonable or probable cause, falsely and maliciously caused and procured a writ of injunction to be issued, and falsely and maliciously caused the same to be served on plaintiff was held bad on demurrer as not being sufficiently specific. Barry vs. Salt Co., 14 Phil. (Pa.) 124. (Cited in 14 Am. & Eng. Enc. L. 42 note.)
In the present case the charge of procuring, by the fraudulent suppression and omission of material facts, a temporary injunction against the plaintiff, is not only not averred with the certainty and particularity usual and proper in declaring upon a malicious misuse or abuse of process as a substantive cause of action, but was apparently intended by the pleader to be laid as a circumstance connected with the trespasses before charged, much the same as the ordinary allegation of holding and keeping out by force and with a strong hand. Taylor vs. Cole, 1 H. Black. 555 (and 3 Term Rep B. R. 292).
We think this is the fair construction to be put upon the language employed, “Enjoining the plaintiff from interfering
The allegation in the second succeeding paragraph, that all the facts aforesaid were done wantonly, recklessly, wilfully, oppressively and maliciously, cannot be made to attach to the charge of procuring the injunction in order to make it a complete count in case, assuming that it would have that effect, a point which we do not deem it necessary here to decide.
It follows that the matter of procuring a temporary injunction was set up merely by way of aggravation, and does not, in the form averred, constitute a separate cause of action.
This view disposes of both points raised by the demurrer, and of the questions presented in argument.
Exceptions overruled.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- KAHULUI RAILROAD COMPANY v. HAWAIIAN COMMERCIAL AND SUGAR COMPANY
- Status
- Published