Prentiss v. Bogart

Citations

• 84 Wash. 481
• 147 P. 39
• 1915 Wash. LEXIS 1234

Syllabus

<p>Husband and Wife — Misconduct of Husband — Liability of Wife. A wife is not liable for acts of her husband amounting to malicious prosecution and false imprisonment.</p> <p>False Imprisonment — Malicious Prosecution — Parties Liable. Threats made by a créditor, showing malice or motive harbored against the debtor, would not render him liable for false imprisonment or malicious prosecution, committed by a trustee in bankruptcy, where there was nothing to show that the malice of the creditor controlled or contributed to the act of the trustee.</p> <p>Malicious Prosecution — Parties Liable — Probable Cause. Under Rem. & Bal. Code, § 2601, defining larceny as the taking of property with intent to deprive or defraud the owner thereof, and Rem. & Bal. Code, 2303, defining an owner as any person who has a general or special property, in the whole or any part thereof, or the lawful possession thereof, either actual or constructive, a trustee in bankruptcy, in possession of property claimed and later decided to be exempt, is entitled to maintain his possession until the referee’s finding is reversed; and hence has probable cause for instituting a prosecution for larceny thereof against the owner who took the same in an unlawful way.</p> <p>Same — -Want of Probable Cause — Remedy by Civil Action. The fact that a person resorts to the criminal courts for the theft of an article, when he might have had recourse to a civil action for its recovery, cannot be urged by the accused as want of probable cause for the prosecution.</p>