A mother went to fetch her 10-year-old son from school on 24 December 1833 to take him home for the Christmas holidays. The headmaster refused to allow her to take her son home because she had not paid the last term’s fees, and he kept the boy at school over the holidays.
Held: Her action for false imprisonment brought on behalf of the boy failed.
Bolland B said: ‘as far as we know, the boy may have been willing to stay; he does not appear to have been cognisant of any restraint, and there was no evidence of any act whatsoever done by the defendant in his presence. I think that we cannot construe the refusal to the mother in the boy’s absence, and without his being cognisant of any restraint, to be an imprisonment of him against his will.’
Bolland B, Baron Gurney
(1834) 1 Cr M and R 377, [1834] EngR 139, (1834) 149 ER 1126, [1834] EngR 140, (1834) 6 Car and P 496, (1834) 172 ER 1335
Commonlii, Commonlii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Extraordinary – Murray v Ministry of Defence HL 25-May-1988
The plaintiff complained that she had been wrongfully arrested by a soldier, since he had not given a proper reason for her detention.
Held: The House accepted the existence of an implied power in a statute which would be necessary to ensure . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Torts – Other
Updated: 19 January 2022; Ref: scu.259573