Duke v Wilkey et Al

• Jurisdiction: Trinidad & Tobago
• Judge: Furness-Smith, P.,C.J. Trinidad,Tobago,Collymore, C.J.,Barbados,Worley, C.J.
• Judgment Date: 09 March 1948
• Neutral Citation: TT 1948 HC 4
• Docket Number: 10 of 1947
• Court: High Court (Trinidad and Tobago)
• Date: 09 March 1948

High Court

Furness-Smith, P. ( C.J. Trinidad and Tobago); Collymore, C.J.Barbados; Worley, C.J. British Guiana

10 of 1947

Duke

and

Wilkey et al

False imprisonment - Passenger travelling in ship with intent to avoid payment of fare — Power under law to arrest — No such intent in passenger — Passenger arrested — Damages awarded for illegal arrest.

APPEAL by Alexander Duke from the judgment of the Supreme Court of Trinidad and Tobago dismissing an action brought by him against James Alexander Wilkey and Police Constable Vincent Daserit for damages for false imprisonment.

The captain of a ship, believing that a passenger was travelling in the ship with intent to avoid payment of his fare and that he had thereby committed a summary conviction offence, ordered the arrest of the passenger. The passenger had no intent to avoid payment of his fare, and there was no reasonable cause to believe that he had committed any offence.

The passenger sued the persons who affected the arrest, for damages for false imprisonment.

Held that he was entitled to damages.

1 The judgement of the court was as follows:

2 The case out of which this appeal arose was a claim for damages in respect of false imprisonment suffered by the plaintiff-appellant when he was arrested by the two respondents acting under orders the Captain of the s.s. Trinidad while travelling on the 17th April, 1945, from Port-of-Spain to Tobago. The appellant was locked up in a bath room cabin from 9 am until 4:30p.m. and, on arrival of the ship at Scarborough, Tobago was taken to the police station where he was charged and then released on bail. The facts, which are not disputed in any material respect, are as follows: On the 12th April, the appellant purchased at Tobago a cheap week-end ticket which entitled him to travel to Port-of-Spain on a Government ship on that date and to return on the 16th. He decided, however, to travel on the 13th April and was permitted by the purser to do notwithstanding that his ticket was available only for the 12th. He apparently assumed that he- would be granted the same indulgence when he returned by the same ship on the 17th, although his return ticket was dated and available only for the 16th April. Unfortunately for him, there was a different purser on the ship for the return journey who refused to accept appellant's expired ticket as valid, and demanded from appellant one dollar ($1.00) being the difference between the price of an ordinary return ticket and a week-end ticket. This the appellant refused to pay and an altercation ensued during which the appellant made use of extravagant and abusive language, and...