US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

STEWART V. SONNEBORN, 98 U. S. 187 (1878)

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U.S. Supreme Court

Stewart v. Sonneborn, 98 U.S. 187 (1878)

Stewart v. Sonneborn

98 U.S. 187

Syllabus

1. To sustain an action for malicious prosecution, the failure of the proceedings against the plaintiff must be averred and proved, but such failure is not evidence of the defendant's malice or want of probable cause in instituting them.

2. Malice, the existence of which is a question exclusively for the jury, and want of probable cause must both concur to entitle the plaintiff to recover, and although the jury may infer malice from the want of probable cause, proof even of express malice will not justify the inference that probable cause did not exist.

3. The question as to what amounts to probable cause is one of law in a very important sense. It is therefore generally the duty of the court, when evidence has been given to prove or disprove the existence of probable cause, to submit to the jury its credibility, and what facts it proves, with instructions that the facts found amount to proof of probable cause or that they do not.

4. A seeming exception to this rule may grow out of the nature of the evidence, as when the defendant's belief of the facts which are relied on by the plaintiff to prove want of probable cause is a question involved. What that belief was is always a question for the jury.

5. In an action by A. to recover damages for the alleged wrongful and malicious institution of proceedings in bankruptcy against him, by B. & Co., the defendants asked the court to charge that if the jury believed from the evidence that they, in prosecuting an action of debt against him, had acted on the advice of counsel, and upon such advice had an honest belief in the validity of the debt sued for and of their right to recover it, and in the institution of the bankruptcy proceedings had acted likewise on such advice, and under an honest belief that they were taking and using only such remedies as the law provided for the collection of what they believed to be a bona fide debt, they having first given a full statement of the facts of the case to counsel, then there was not such malice in the wrongful use of legal proceedings by them as would entitle A. to recover. The court declined so to charge. Held 1. that the instruction should have been given; 2. that the facts therein stated constituted in law a probable cause, and being such, the existence of malice, if such there was, would not entitle the plaintiff to recover.

6. The jury, if they find for the plaintiff, cannot, in estimating his damages, consider the fees of counsel in prosecuting the suit.

This was an action brought by Meyer Sonneborn, the plaintiff below, against A. T. Stewart & Co., to recover damages for an alleged wrongful and malicious institution of proceedings in bankruptcy against him. The record shows that in the years 1865 and 1866, Sonneborn was a member of the firm of chanrobles.com-red

Page 98 U. S. 188

E. Leipzeiger & Co., in New York, and that while he was thus a member, the firm bought goods on credit from A. T. Stewart & Co. Sometime in 1866 he withdrew from the firm, but no notice of his withdrawal was published, and the firm continued business in its old name without any apparent change. In the spring of 1867, the defendants sold other goods on credit to E. Leipzeiger & Co., as they allege, without any notice that Sonneborn had previously withdrawn from the firm. On the other hand, he alleges that he did give personal notice of his withdrawal to one of the clerks in the defendants' store before the purchases of 1867 were made. No payment for these latter purchases having been made, the defendants in 1869 sued the plaintiff to recover the debt in the Circuit Court for Barbour County, Alabama, and after trial a verdict and judgment were given against them. This was at the August Term, 1871. From the verdict and judgment the defendants prosecuted an appeal to the supreme court of the state, where the judgment was reversed and a new trial was ordered. On the 12th of May, 1873, before the case came on for a second trial, one Jonas Sonneborn, a brother of the plaintiff, brought suit against him in the Eufaula City Court, and one month afterwards recovered a judgment by default for $6,944.43 (the present plaintiff having made no resistance), and thereupon an execution was issued and levied. This proceeding having come to the notice of A. T. Stewart & Co. (and they having been advised by legal counsel that an act of bankruptcy had thereby been committed by Sonneborn), on the 15th of August, 1873, they filed their petition in the District Court, praying that he might be declared a bankrupt and that a warrant might issue to take possession of his estate. They represented themselves to be creditors for the sales made to E. Leipzeiger & Co. in 1867, of which firm they averred Sonneborn was a member, and the act of bankruptcy alleged was that on the 12th of June, 1873, he suffered and permitted a judgment to be recovered against him by default in favor of Jonas Sonneborn, in the City Court of Eufaula, upon which an execution had issued, whereon a levy had been made. Upon this petition, a rule to show cause, &c., was awarded, an injunction issued, and a warrant for provisional seizure granted, which on the 19th chanrobles.com-red

Page 98 U. S. 189

of August, 1873, was executed. Such was the situation when the case of the defendants against the plaintiff came on for the second trial in the Barbour County Circuit Court. The result of that trial in November, 1873, was a judgment for Sonneborn, which was subsequently affirmed by the supreme court of the state at its June Term, 1874. It thus having been determined that the defendants were not creditors of Sonneborn, the proceedings in bankruptcy were dismissed and the present suit was brought, alleging that they had been prosecuted maliciously and without probable cause.

There was a verdict for the plaintiff for $21,000 and costs, and, judgment having been entered thereon, Stewart & Co. sued out this writ of error. So much of the charge of the court below as was excepted to by the defendants, and also the instructions requested by them and refused, are set forth in the opinion of the Court. chanrobles.com-red

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