Whittaker v. Sandford
Supreme
Judicial Court of Maine, 1912.
110 Me. 77,
85 A. 399.
Prosser, 45-47.
Facts: The plaintiff was a member of a cult outside the
Procedural Posture: The defendant appealed on the basis that the jury
instructions given at trial were unlawful.
Issue: Was the plaintiff physically restrained?
Rule: The plaintiff must be restrained by the defendant
physically and unlawfully in order for false imprisonment to lie.
Analysis: To argue that the jury found for the plaintiff
correctly, the court makes an analogy between being held on the yacht and being
held in a locked room. If I am
unlawfully locked in a room without access to a key, then I have been falsely
imprisoned. Likewise, if I am kept on a
yacht without access to a rowboat, I have been falsely imprisoned.
Conclusion: The court upheld the lower court’s verdict.
Notes and Questions
1.
This
situation meets the criteria for false imprisonment because the woman cannot
escape the car without the risk of serious injury.
2.
This
may explain lighted “exit” signs in all public buildings from a common law if
not a statutory standpoint.
3.
This
is admittedly problematic. It is not
false imprisonment if you are committed to a mental health institution or if
you are ordered by a court to enter a drug rehabilitation program. If you are really “brainwashed” and are in
the cult against your will, it would seem that “deprogramming” ought to be
legal because it’s what you would want for yourself if you were in your right
mind. However, you must question whether
there is such a thing as brainwashing and what the First Amendment implications
of a practice like deprogramming.
4.
This
case would have strong policy implications; the interests of the plaintiff in
this case would have to be weighed against those of the other passengers both
on the plane and those waiting for that plane to arrive as a connecting flight. Unless there was some kind of grave
emergency, it doesn’t seem like keeping passengers on the plane would be
unlawful.