Baltimore Transit Co. v. Faulkner

Delaplaine, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. James F. Faulkner and his son, Albert G. Faulkner, instituted these suits for damages against the Baltimore Transit Company for assault and battery alleged to have been committed upon them by employees of the company. The two cases were tried together, and the jury rendered a verdict in favor of the plaintiff in each case. On April 16th, 1940, while Faulkner was driving with his son on Eutaw Street in Baltimore, his automobile was struck by another operated by Carl E. Micklich at the intersection of Lombard Street.

No one was injured, and Micklich admitted that he was at fault. Faulkner, however, brought out his camera, and walked down the street to take a photograph. He then proceeded to take a picture from another angle. By that time a traffic jam had arisen, and employees of the Baltimore Transit Company from a nearby trouble station arrived on the scene.

Faulkner warned the men not to move his car until he had finished taking his pictures. When Irving R. Goodard, one of the crew, took hold of the bumper to disengage the two cars, Faulkner hit him on the back ⁶⁰⁰ of the neck, whereupon Goddard struck Faulkner on the face “with his elbow or open hand,” and another employee struck him in the eye. Faulkner’s son, a college football athlete 21 years old, who had been trying to keep another man from releasing the brake, charged between them, and struck Edward C. Mooney, a member of the crew, on the arm. Mooney pushed him away, and when the son lunged toward him, Mooney struck him in the eye, knocking him over.

The transit company’s trouble truck radioed the-police, and soon afterwards a police officer arrested the participants in the affray. In the case of Albert G. Faulkner, the trial court instructed the jury that even though they found that he had first hit or pushed the defendant’s employees, their verdict should be for him, if they further found that in repelling his acts they used “unreasonable and excessive force,” meaning such force “as prudent men would not have used under all the circumstances of the case.” A prayer of that nature is proper. Zell v. Dunaway, 115 Md. 1 , 20 A. 215 . But a similar instruction should also have been given in the case of the father.

The transit company offered a prayer in each case that if the jury found that the plaintiff had first assaulted and struck the employees while they were disengaging the automobiles, and the employees “did no more than defend themselves” from further assault, then the verdict should be for the defendant. These prayers were not drawn with sufficient accuracy to state the law of the cases, and were properly refused. It is undoubtedly true that the defendant company was entitled to have the matter of self-defense of its employees submitted to the jury. The law of self-defense justifies an act done in the reasonable belief of immediate danger.

If an injury was done by a defendant in justifiable self-defense, he can neither be punished criminally nor held responsible for damages in a civil action. New Orleans and Northeastern R. R. Co. v. Joyes, 142 U. S. 18 , 12 S. Ct. 109 , 35 L. Ed. 919 . But the prayers failed to state the standard of the amount of force which the employees could have used to ⁶⁰¹ defend themselves. One who seeks to justify an assault on the ground that he acted in self-defense must show that he used no more force than the exigency reasonably demanded.

The belief of a defendant in an action for assault that the plaintiff intended to do him bodily harm cannot support a plea of self-defense unless it was such a belief as a person of average prudence would entertain under similar circumstances. The jury should accordingly be instructed that to justify assault and battery in self-defense the circumstances must be such as would have induced a reasonable man of average prudence to make such an assault in order to protect himself. The question whether the belief of the defendant that he was about to be injured was a reasonable one under all the circumstances of the case is a question for the consideration of the jury. Zell v. Dunaway, 115 Md. 1 , 20 A. 215 .

The main question in these cases is whether the trial court properly instructed the jury as to damages. The jury were instructed in each case that if they found that the assault and battery committed by the employees of the transit company was “wanton and excessive,” they could award, in addition to actual damages, such further vindictive and punitive damages as they might think proper from the evidence. The law is settled in Maryland that if an assault has been committed mailiciously or wantonly, the jury are not restricted to compensatory damages, but may give in addition thereto such exemplary damages as the circumstances of the case may warrant. Sloan v. Edwards, 61 Md. 28, 100 .

Thus, where a man had raised a window in a private home and assaulted the woman who resided there, this Court said that such an assault without provocation constituted “reckless violance” and “indignity,” which justified the jury in awarding such exemplary damages as they might consider proper. Thillman v. Neal, 88 Md. 525 , 42 A. 242 . Where there is evidence of provocation by the plaintiff, but the provocation may not entirely justify an assault, yet if it is of such a character as would naturally arouse the anger of men of ordinary temperament, then ⁶⁰² it is admissible in mitigation of exemplary damages, and whether there was sufficient provocation is á question that should be left to the consideration of the jury. Baltimore & Ohio R. R. Co. v. Barger, 80 Md. 23 , 30 A. 560 ; Baltimore & Ohio R. R. Co. v. Strube, 111 Md. 119 , 73 A. 697 .

Thus, where an employee, acting on the behalf that it'was his duty to his employer to