Singh v Amoco Trinidad Oil Company et Al
| Jurisdiction | Trinidad & Tobago |
| Judge | Bereaux, J. |
| Judgment Date | 23 October 2003 |
| Neutral Citation | TT 2003 HC 120 |
| Docket Number | H.C.A. No. S-209 of 1985 |
| Court | High Court (Trinidad and Tobago) |
| Date | 23 October 2003 |
High Court
Bereaux, J.
H.C.A. No. S-209 of 1985
H. Seunath S.C., K. Kamta for plaintiff.
F. Gilkes for first defendant.
L. Sheppard & A. Rambaran for second defendant.
Tort - Arrest on suspicion of larceny — Whether police had reasonable grounds to arrest the plaintiff — Whether the plaintiff had been falsely imprisoned and the detention of his goods was wrongful — Finding that the police had reasonable grounds for arresting the plaintiff and that the retention of the goods after he was released so that the police could conduct further investigations was not wrongful — Claim dismissed.
This claim is for false imprisonment and wrongful detention of goods. On 16th August, 1984, the plaintiff (to whom I shall also refer as Mr. Singh) was arrested by Police Corporal Daniel Francis on suspicion that he had stolen a quantity of instrumentation valves and fittings from the Amoco Oil Company (“Amoco”). He was employed with Amoco as an Operations Specialist and worked on an offshore platform on a “week on/week off basis”; that is to say, Mr. Singh worked one week offshore and had the following week off.
He was in police custody for about thirty (30) hours having been arrested at approximately 10.00 a.m. on the 16th August, 1984. During this period, he was interrogated by Superintendent Dennis Taylor at the Criminal Investigation Department, Harris Promenade, San Fernando (“the C.I.D.”), kept overnight and taken the following day to Amoco's offshore platform at Point Galeota where a search of his and the lockers of other employees was conducted by police. He was released without charge at about 5.00 pm on the 17th August, 1984.
At the time of his arrest, the plaintiff had in his possession seven hundred and forty-six pieces of instrumentation valves and fittings which he had brought to sell to Mr. Arnold Mendes, a Director of the Trinidad Valve and Fittings Company. The sale had been pre-arranged with Mr. Mendes at an agreed price of sixteen thousand dollars. There had been three meetings between them. Mr. Mendes had been given three lists of valves and fittings which the plaintiff claimed to have in his possession. Unknown to the plaintiff, Mr. Mendes had been in close contact with the police from the outset and had intimated to them his suspicions that the items in question had been stolen from Amoco. The consequence was that the plaintiff on his arrival at the premises of the Trinidad Valve and Fitting Company on the 16th August was arrested by the police and all seven hundred and forty-six pieces seized. Upon his release the items were kept by the police pending further investigation.
Those investigations culminated in a warrant for the plaintiff's arrest being issued by the police on about 3rd January, 1985. The plaintiff was arrested by then Constable Cecil Santana (now Sergeant Santana) on 18th January, 1985 at about 1.30 p.m. Constable Santana had been aware of the existence of the warrant. The plaintiff was charged with larceny of the seven hundred and forty six pieces of instrumentation valves and fittings, being the property of Amoco Trinidad Oil Company, contrary to section 4 of the Larceny Act. He was released from custody some time later that evening. (The actual time of release was a matter of dispute).
Prior to the second arrest, the plaintiff's solicitor wrote to the Commissioner of Police requesting the return of the valves and fittings and threatening legal proceedings.
The plaintiff filed this action on 30th January, 1985 seeking inter alia, damages for wrongful detention of the valves and fittings and for false imprisonment with respect to the periods of his detention on 16th August, 1984 and 18th January 1985. On December 19th, 2001, I dismissed the plaintiff's action with costs. I now set forth my reasons for doing so which are taken from a full script written at the time of my decision.
No action is maintainable against Amoco for wrongful detention of the goods since the items in question were detained by the police. As to the claims against the first defendant for false imprisonment and the claim against the second defendant in respect of the second arrest on 18th January, 1985, they are also without merit and it is convenient that I dispose of them now.
As to the false imprisonment action, the allegation is that Amoco participated in the arrest and detention of the plaintiff and is also liable. The particulars are as follows:
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(a) Mr. John Manelos, a servant of Amoco, during the visit to the platform on 17th August, 1984, told the plaintiff that he was in police custody and should say nothing to other persons on the platform while on it;
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(b) during the search of the lockers on the platform, Mr. Steve Hicks an employee of the first defendant opened all the lockers including the plaintiff's with a bolt cutter;
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(c) Mr. Malcolm Jenkins and Mr. Manelos took control of the plaintiff and sought to obtain information from him, threatening the plaintiff with the possibility of being jailed if he did not cooperate.
On those pleadings no prima facie case of false imprisonment is raised against the first defendant. The fact that an employee of Amoco may have told the plaintiff that he was in police custody admits of nothing since the arrest of the plaintiff by the police was by then a fait accompli and he was already in police custody.
Secondly, there is no proper legal basis for a false imprisonment action against the first defendant. The actual arrest and imprisonment was effected by the police, thereafter he was always in the custody of the police. Unless it is shown that the participation of the first defendant's employees was somehow inextricably bound up in the actual physical taking of the plaintiff at the time of his arrest on 16th August, 1984, or that the first defendant's security officers assumed custody and control of the plaintiff at Point Galeota, the plaintiff cannot succeed.
However, the evidence led in support did not prove false imprisonment on the part of the first defendant since it is apparent that the plaintiff was at all times under the control of the police officers during the visit to the premises of the first defendant. His arrest was as a result of information given to the police by Mr. Mendes. The police's search of the platform lockers was part of an ongoing investigation which Amoco facilitated and cooperated with from the outset. Mr. Hicks’ cutting of the lockers was part of that process. There was also concurrent internal investigation by Amoco with respect to its stock of valves and fittings. The questioning of the plaintiff by Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Manelos was permitted by the police while they were on the platform. The evidence of Constable Cadogan for the plaintiff and Mr. Manelos and Inspector Maharaj for the defendants indicated that the plaintiff remained in police custody throughout. At best the taking of the plaintiff to his place of work and the permitting of such questioning goes to aggravated damages against the second defendant.
In addition the plaintiff's efforts to implicate Amoco in the arrest were unpersuasive. He testified of being told by Mr. Manelos that he was under arrest upon his arrival at the first defendant's premises at Point Galeota. I consider this to be one of several embellishments made to his evidence by the plaintiff in an effort to bolster his case against the first defendant by suggesting that the first defendant's security officers assumed control of him at Point Galeota. Another was his testimony that he saw three Caucasian men at the C.I.D. when he was taken there on 16th August, 1984. (This latter contention was denied by the second defendant's witnesses.) Mr. Manelos’ evidence was that at the time of the plaintiff's arrest, he (Manelos) was in a San Fernando hotel awaiting developments. I consider that the defendants’ evidence was by far the more credible since there was no reason for any of Amoco's employees to be present at the C.I.D. at the time of the plaintiff's arrest.
With respect to the plaintiff's arrest on 18th January 1985, the claim for false imprisonment also cannot succeed since his arrest was effected pursuant to a warrant obtained by Corporal Daniel Francis, a copy of which was tendered into evidence.
At common law an imprisonment which is consequent upon an arrest warrant is done upon the authority of the judicial officer who authorized its issue and the police officer who laid the complaint is not liable for false imprisonment. The proper remedy is in malicious prosecution. That legal principle has been long established. See Clerk & Lindsell on Torts 15th Edition page 668 at para 14-18 where the author states:
“Legal proceedings may be either ministerial or judicial. In case of the former, the party employs the machinery of the law entirely at his own risk and is directly responsible for the consequences. In case of the latter, he appeals to the discretion of a judge or magistrate, which is thus interposed, and the steps thereupon taken result immediately from the exercise of that discretion and not from the act of the party… Under such circumstances a man may indeed be liable in an action of malicious prosecution if he has wrongfully set the law in motion…”
In Brown v. Chapman 136 E.R 1292 at pg. 1296 Coltman, J. in dealing with the legality of an arrest effected by warrant procured by the police officer said:
“It appears to us that the acts of the defendant throughout amounted to no more than calling on the magistrate to exercise his jurisdiction, and that the particular expression which alone can properly be argued to be evidence of an authority given by the defendant for the imprisonment of the plaintiff was addressed to the magistrate,...
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