# William Whirl v. C. v. (Buster) Kern and Fidelity and Deposit Company of Maryland

> Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit · March 4, 1969 · 407 F.2d 781

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9454307

## Case

- **Full name:** William WHIRL, Appellant, v. C. v. (Buster) KERN and Fidelity and Deposit Company of Maryland, Appellees
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
- **Decided:** March 4, 1969
- **Citations:** 407 F.2d 781
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** On rehearing
- **Judges:** Goldberg, Clayton, Hannay
- **Cited by:** 248 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/9454307

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that a “breakdown in communication” between the District Attorney, the Court, and the Sheriff, which led the plaintiff to “languish[ ] in jail for almost nine months after all charges against him were dismissed,” was sufficient to sustain the plaintiffs Fourteenth Amen…
- concluding that a jailer does not commit “an instant tort at the moment” the prisoner is entitled to release; instead, a jailer’s “duty to his prisoner is not breached until the expiration of a reasonable time for the proper ascertainment of the authority upon which his prison…
- explaining that a sheriff’s “duty to his prisoner is not breached until the expiration of a reasonable time for the proper ascertainment of the authority upon which his prisoner is 11 detained,” and holding that nine months was an unreasonable amount of time
- recognizing that unlike “errors in a [facially-valid] warrant,” which are subject to the control of the courts, sheriffs are responsible for holding a prisoner “in jail without a court order or written mittimus”
- stating nominal damages are recoverable for false imprisonment and “perhaps in some circumstances that is all a man’s freedom is worth, but though the pri-cetag be a bargain, freedom is never valueless.”

## Opinion text

On Petition for Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc
PER CURIAM:
The Petition for Rehearing is denied and the Court having been polled at the request of one of the members of the *799 Court and a majority of the Circuit Judges who are in regular active service not having voted in favor of it, (Rule 35 Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure; Local Fifth Circuit Rule 12) the Petition for Rehearing En Banc is also denied.
COLEMAN and SIMPSON, Circuit Judges, dissent from the denial of rehearing en banc.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9454307. Public record. Not legal advice.