Kuchenmeister v Home Office: QBD 1958

The plaintiff, a German national landed at Heathrow airport en route to Dublin. The immigration officers, instead of refusing him leave to land (as they had been instructed to do), detained him at the airport until it was too late for him to catch the Dublin flight. They might have had other powers to detain him, but had wrongly acted under the 1953 Order which gave no such power.
Held: He had been wrongfully imprisoned. The immigration officers had no power to detain the claimant in such a way as to prevent his transiting from one aircraft to another The right of liberty is a precious right entitled to protection. Barry J said: ‘His liberty was restricted to a greater degree than the immigration authorities were entitled to restrict it under [the particular power they sought to rely upon]. The fact that they might have restricted his mobility by employing the powers conferred upon them by other articles of the Order seems to me to be immaterial. It is no answer, when a man says ‘I have been unlawfully arrested without a warrant,’ to say ‘Well, had I (the person making the arrest) taken the trouble to go and ask for a warrant, I would undoubtedly have got it.’ That would be no answer to a claim for unlawful arrest. Similarly here, although the [immigration officers] could have detained the plaintiff by refusing him leave to land, that does not entitle them to detain him on the grounds on which they did.’
The judge awarded damages of andpound;150 even though ‘no pecuniary damage [had] been suffered’ on the basis that it was ‘a fair figure which will vindicate the plaintiff’s rights without amounting to a vindictive award’.

Judges:

Barry J

Citations:

[1958] 1 QB 496

Statutes:

Aliens Order 1953 2(1)(b)

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

CitedLumba (WL) v Secretary of State for The Home Department SC 23-Mar-2011
The claimants had been detained under the 1971 Act, after completing sentences of imprisonment pending their return to their home countries under deportations recommended by the judges at trial, or chosen by the respondent. They challenged as . .
CitedBostridge v Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust CA 10-Feb-2015
The claimant had been detained as a mental patient, but it was accepted that that detention had been unlawful as to over 400 days. The respondent argued that since he might have been detained in any event under other powers, he should receive only . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Torts – Other, Damages

Updated: 21 May 2022; Ref: scu.431210