Brown v. Randall Supreme Court, Connecticut, March Term, 1869. Reported in 36 Connecticut Reports, 56

Carpenter, J. The defendants complained to a grandjuror of the town of Norwich against the plaintiff, charging him with a breach of the peace, and induced the grandjuror to enter a complaint to a magistrate in due form, whereupon a warrant was issued, and the plaintiff arrested and held to answer the complaint. After remaining in custody several hours, the magistrate informed the defendants and their counsel, who acted for the grandjuror, that he was ready to proceed with the trial. The defendants sent word to the court that they should prosecute the complaint no further, and thereupon the plaintiff was discharged. It is alleged in the declaration that this proceeding was malicious and without probable cause, and the jury have found that allegation to be true.

The important question in this case is whether, upon the facts alleged and proved, the plaintiff is entitled to recover. All the material averments seem to have been proved except the allegation of acquittal. That was not proved, and the court charged the jury that it was not necessary. The defendants complain of this, as they rely upon the non-existence of that fact as a complete defence to the action. Decisions of courts of the highest respectability, both in England and in this country, justify this claim. It does not appear that this question has ever been directly determined by this court. We are referred to the case of Monroe v. Maples, 1 Root, 553. But no such question arose in that case. It simply decided that a person convicted of the crime charged against him could not maintain the action. We are therefore at liberty to determine the question upon principle.

The grounds of this action are, the malice of the defendant, the want of probable cause, and an injury sustained by the plaintiff. 1 Swift’s Digest, 491. The conviction of the plaintiff is justly considered as conclusive evidence of probable cause. The authorities referred to virtually decide—without sufficient reason as it seems to us—that the termination of the prosecution by a nolle prosequi, or abandonment, was equally conclusive upon that question.

One reason given for this is, that no termination of the prosecution in favor of the accused short of an acquittal will discharge the crime or be a bar to a new indictment. This reasoning is not satisfactory. The possibility that the plaintiff may be again prosecuted for the same alleged offence is not inconsistent with an entire want of probable cause in the first prosecution. This reason seems to have been disregarded in Sayles v. Briggs, 4 Met. 421. The complainant abandoned the prosecution against the plaintiff after a trial, and the magistrate, who could only bind over or discharge the person accused, discharged him. The court held that the action could be maintained. Yet such a discharge could be no bar to a subsequent prosecution.

Another reason given is, that the common law will not favor actions in behalf of a party criminally prosecuted against one who has acted as complainant in behalf of the public, and ostensibly for the public good; it therefore requires that the plaintiff in such an action shall begin by offering the verdict of a jury who have considered the cause on its merits. This may be a very proper caution to a jury, and a matter which ought to be considered by them in weighing evidence, but we see no sufficient reason for adopting it as an absolute rule of law, the effect of which is, in some cases at least, to shut out the truth. No such rule has been adopted in this State, and we think it is contrary to the prevailing notions of the profession. Judge Swift, in his Digest, vol. 1, p. 491, states five different modes of terminating a prosecution in favor of the accused which will lay the foundation for this action, and one of them is, “when the prosecution has been abandoned and given up.”

In Parker v. Farley, 10 Cush. 279, Shaw, C. J., in speaking of the rule under consideration, says: “Were this a new and original question, to be decided upon principle, it might be doubted whether it would be just and wise to establish this as an inflexible rule of practice.”

On the whole we think it wise and safe, when a prosecution has been abandoned, as this was, without any arrangement with the accused, and without any request from him that it should be so abandoned, to leave the question of probable cause to the jury.

The charge of the court was in harmony with these views, and we do not advise a new trial.

In this opinion the other judges concurred.