Burk v. Howley

Citations

• 179 Pa. 539
• 39 W.N.C. 473
• 36 A. 327
• 1897 Pa. LEXIS 688

Syllabus

<p>Arrest without warrant — Bearing.</p> <p>While an arrest on an exigency where reasonable grounds of suspicion exist may be made without a warrant, it is the duty of the person or officer making the arrest to take the accused before a magistrate for formal accusation and hearing before he shall have been locked up.</p> <p>False imprisonment — Evidence—Probable cause.</p> <p>In an action for false imprisonment, evidence as to a conversation between the plaintiff and the officer who arrested him, not in the presence of defendant, as to the appearance of the rooms burglarized, is inadmissible.</p> <p>Malicious prosecution — Arrest—Unjustifiable detention — •Probable cause —Province of court and jury — Joint trespassers.</p> <p>Probable cause does not depend on the state of the case in point of fact, but on the honest and reasonable belief of the party prosecuting. What facts and circumstances amount to probable cause is a question of law; whether'they exist in any particular case is a question of fact. When the facts are in controversy, the subject must be submitted to the jury, in which event it is the duty of the court to instruct them what facts will constitute probable cause, and submit to them only the question of such facts.</p> <p>In an action for malicious prosecution, it appeared that the plaintiff, a colored woman, thirty years of age, had been in the service of defendant for about one week. While she was sole occupant of defendant’s house, the house was entered and a large quantity of silverware stolen. On rising in the morning plaintiff immediately notified defendant who had been sleeping in the next house. An officer was summoned who, in the pi'egence of defendant, charged plaintiff with the theft. She protested her innocence, but was arrested without a warrant, and detained in a station-house at the defendant’s request for eight days. Defendant knew that plaintiff had a good character. The evidence showed that her detention was for the purpose of forcin