President of the Baltimore & Yorktown Turnpike Road v. Green

Briscoe, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is a suit for false arrest and malicious prosecution brought by the appellee Fletcher Green against the appellant, the President, Managers and Company of the Baltimore and Yorktown Turnpike Road, a corporation duly incorporated under the laws of the State of Maryland. The declaration states that the defendant on the 17th day of September, 1894, falsely, maliciously and without probable cause, procured or caused to be procured, a warrant, to be issued by Albert W. Perrie, a justice of the peace of the State of Maryland, in and for Baltimore County, under the Act of 1890, ch. 442, for the arrest of the plaintiff, charging him with defrauding the Baltimore and Yorktown Turnpike Road of tolls ; that the justice of the peace required him to enter into a recognizance for his appearance at the Circuit Court of Baltimore County to answer the charge ; that the charge was afterwards dismissed and the plaintiff discharged. It is also alleged that the charge contained in the warrant was in fact, false, malicious and without probable cause.

At the trial there were two exceptions taken, one to the admissibility of certain testimony and the other to the* re ¹⁶⁶ fusal of the Court to grant the defendant’s ist, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th and 7th prayers. The judgment being for the plaintiff, the defendant has appealed. , There were but two witnesses examined at the trial; they were the plaintiff, Fletcher Green, and Charles E. Bowen, employee of the defendant corporation and its toll-gatherer. The material facts are: The appellant owns and operates a turnpike road which extends from Baltimore City through Towson to the Pennsylvania line; that on September 17th, 1894, the plaintiff drove his wagon partly through what is known as the Towson gate; that Bowen, the gatekeeper, came out and said he wanted the toll, &c. “ I told him I would not'pay. He said you can’t go down the road, and he took one of my mules by the bridle and backed the wagon out of the gate and across the pike, and stood in the middle of the gateway.

I told him I would not pay eight cents ; if I give you anything I will give you ten cents, and with that I drove up and pulled around him and went down to the other gate, where I paid ten cents.” The witness Bowen testified that “ On September 17th I had trouble with Mr. Green about his toll; he was going to Baltimore and was driving a two-horse narrow-tread wagon. I demanded the toll; he said he did not intend to pay it; I said you can’t go through this gate, and caught his horse by the bridle and backed the team away from the gate; he said, let me go and I won’t go through your gate ; he then drove around the gate over the railroad tracks, and went on down the pike to Baltimore ; he did not tell me he was going to drive around the gate ; he did not tell me why he refused to pay.” He further testified as to the arrest: “I remember I went to Col. Offutt’s office and explained to him the whole circumstance of my trouble with Green, and he got a book and showed me the law; he did not advise me to have Green arrested ; he just told me in a general way what the law was, that anybody who evaded the payment of toll was liable to be arrested ; I went to the squire’s office, who told ¹⁶⁷ me he knew of