Warner v. Talbot

Citations

• 112 La. 817
• 36 So. 743
• 66 L.R.A. 336
• 1903 La. LEXIS 475

Syllabus

<p>ASSAULT AND BATTERY — ACTION FOR DAMAGES —EVIDENCE—APPEAL—INSTRUCTIONS.</p> <p>1. In a civil action to recover actual damages for abuse and ill treatment inflicted in an effort to extort information from one suspected of having committed a crime, evidence as to the facts connected with such supposed crime, said to have been committed five days prior to the abuse and ill treatment complained of, is inadmissible either by way of justification or in mitigation of the damages claimed.</p> <p>2. In a civil case, where there is no well-founded complaint of the exclusion of evidence, it becomes immaterial, on the appeal, whether the charge of the trial judge was right or wrong, since it is the duty and privilege of this court to apply the law, according to its understanding thereof, and regardless of what the trial judge may have charged, to the facts as disclosed by the record.</p> <p>3.Where a number of citizens, without warrant of law, take into the woods a young man whom they suspect of having committed the crime of arson, and who is, at the time, in attendance upon the grand jury, and there abuse and ill treat him for a number of hours, and place a rope around his neck and threaten to hang, and make a demonstration of hanging, him, all with a view of extorting from him a confession of the crime or an accusation against some other person, a verdict of $500 as damages for mental anguish, terror, and distress is insufficient, even though nothing be claimed on account of damage to reputation, and nothing be proven in the way of pecuniary loss, and the amount allowed will be increased.</p> <p>(Syllabus by the Court.)</p>