Baird v. Householder

An action on the case cannot be maintained for maliciously causing a person to be arrested on a criminal warrant, charging an act which is not a crime but simply a trespass. Such warrant is void, and all persons acting under it are trespassers. Trespass, therefore, and not case, is the proper remedy. Maher v. Ashmead, 6 Casey 344, affirmed.

Error to the Common Pleas of Washington county. This was an action on the case for malicious prosecution, by George Householder against Thomas H. Baird. The declaration, as originally framed, was in case for malicious prosecution; and on the trial the court permitted an amendment to be filed, charging a malicious arrest on a criminal warrant. On the 18th August 1854, the defendant caused a warrant to be issued by a justice of the peace, charging the plaintiff “ with taking and carrying away from the farm of deponent a quantity of oats straw (which had been raised and cut on said farm by Householder), without the knowledge or consent of said Baird; the said straw being the property of said Baird, it being the one-half of the produce, which, according to the lease, was to- be delivered to said Baird.” On this warrant the plaintiff was arrested, and after a hearing, was bound over to the next Court of Quarter Sessions, for trial. The court, on examination of the information, quashed the proceedings and discharged the plaintiff from his recognisance; whereupon he commenced this action for malicious prosecution. When the case came up for trial, the plaintiff moved for leave to amend his declaration, by adding a count for a malicious arrest on a criminal warrant. The court allowed the amendment, notwithstanding an objection by the defendant. The defendant then withdrew his plea of not-guilty, and demurred to the declaration; and on argument, the court gave judgment for the plaintiff, with leave to the defendant to plead over, on payment of costs. The defendant, thereupon, pleaded to the declaration, and, on the trial, there was a verdict for the plaintiff for $148, on which judgment was entered. The defendant then removed the cause to this court, and here assigned for error: 1. That the action should have been trespass, and not case. 2. That the court below erred in allowing the amendment.