# Morrow v. Wheeler & Wilson Manufacturing Co.

> Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · February 28, 1896 · 165 Mass. 349

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6425531

## Case

- **Full name:** Georgianna Morrow v. Wheeler and Wilson Manufacturing Company & another
- **Court:** Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
- **Decided:** February 28, 1896
- **Citations:** 165 Mass. 349; 43 N.E. 105; 1896 Mass. LEXIS 262
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Opinion of the court by Barker
- **Judges:** Barker
- **Cited by:** 9 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6425531

## Opinion text

Barker, J.
The exceptions to the ruling that the first count, which was for libel, and the second count, which was for assault and false imprisonment, could not be maintained, must be overruled.
Upon the evidence, the only publication of defamatory words was the making of the complaint to the police court; the only assaults and imprisonments were the arrest and detention of the plaintiff under due process of law. A complaint made to a court of competent jurisdiction in the regular course of justice, and containing no impertinent allegations, is not deemed an actionable libel. Kidder v. Parhhurst, 3 Allen, 393 . Nor is the complainant or his principal liable for the arrest and detention of the person complained of, save in the case of a malicious prosecution ; and in that case damages for the arrest and deten *351 tian are recoverable only as elements of the general damages, and not independently. Barker v. Stetson, 7 Gray, 53 . Coupal v. Ward, 106 Mass. 289 . Mullen v. Brown, 138 Mass. 114 . Langford v. Boston & Albany Railroad, 144 Mass. 431 .
We need not inquire whether the plaintiff should have been made to elect as to which defendant she would proceed against upon the count for malicious prosecution. See Mulchey v. Methodist Religious Society, 125 Mass. 487 . Her conviction in the police court conclusively established the fact that the prosecution was instituted with probable cause. Dennehey v. Woodsum, 100 Mass. 195, 197 . This defeated her action, and she was harmed neither by her discontinuance as to one defendant, nor by the ordering of the verdict against her in favor of the other defendant.
Exceptions overruled.

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6425531. Public record. Not legal advice.