swarb.co.uk - law index
These cases are from the lawindexpro database. They are now being transferred to the swarb.co.uk website in a better form. As a case is published there, an entry here will link to it. The swarb.co.uk site includes many later cases.
Police - From: 1200 To: 1799
This page lists 6 cases, and was prepared on 02 April 2018.
Sharrock v Hannemer (1595) Cro Eliz 375; (1595) 78 ER 622
1595
Police, Torts - Other
A constable without a warrant may not arrest somebody for an affray which he did not himself witness, unless a felony is likely to follow.
Radcliffe v Eden; 1776 - (1776) 2 Cowp 486
Samuel v Payne [1780] 1 Doug. 359
1780
Police
A ploce constable can justify an arrest made on a charge preferred by another person, although no felony had in fact been committed.
1 Citers
Mason v Sainsbury (1782) 3 Dougl 61; [1782] EngR 37; (1782) 3 Doug 61; (1782) 99 ER 538
19 Apr 1782
Lord Mansfield CJ, Buller J
Insurance, Police
A claim was made upon insurance after a riot. The court asked asked "Who is first liable?" This was not an issue of chronology but of establishing where the primary responsibility lay to make good the loss. The Act laid the primary responsibility with the inhabitants of the hundred, and it did not matter that the insurer had indemnified the insured. Lord Mansfield said: "The facts of this case lie in a narrow compass. The argument turns much on want of precision in stating the case, as most arguments do. The office paid without suit, not in ease of the hundred, and not as co-obligors, but without prejudice. It is, to all intents, as if it had not been paid. The question, then, comes to this, can the owner, having insured, sue the hundred? Who is first liable? If the hundred, it makes no difference; if the insurer, then it is a satisfaction, and the hundred is not liable. But the contrary is evident from the nature of the contract of insurance. It is an indemnity. Every day the insurer is put in the place of the insured. In every abandonment it is so. The insurer uses the name of the insured. The case is clear: the Act puts the hundred, for civil purposes, in the place of the trespassers; and, upon principles of policy, as in the case of other remedies against the hundred, I am satisfied that it is to be considered as if the insurers had not paid a farthing."
Buller J said: "The better way is to consider this as a contract of indemnity. The principle is, that the insurer and insured are one, and, in that light, paying before or after can make no difference. I am, therefore, clearly of opinion, that the hundred cannot avail themselves of this defence." and "It has been admitted, and rightly, that the hundred is put in the place of the trespassers."
Willes J said: "I am of the same opinion . . The hundred is not answerable criminally, but they cannot be considered as free from blame. They may have been negligent, which is partly the principle of the Act."
Riot Act 1714
1 Citers
[ Commonlii ]
London Assurance Company v Sainsbury (1783) 3 Dougl 246; [1783] EngR 109; (1783) 3 Doug 245; (1783) 99 ER 636
28 Jun 1783
Mansfield L, Butler, Willes, Ashurst, JJ
Insurance, Police
An insurance otlice having paid the assured the amount of the loss sustained by him in consequence of a demolishing by rioters, sued the hundredors under the stat. I G. 1, at. 2, e. 5, s. 6, in their own names. HeId by Lord Mansfield and Butler, J. (Willes and Ashurst, J.J,, dissentient), that the office was not erititled to recover.
1 Citers
[ Commonlii ]
Williams v Dawson Unreported 1788
1788
Buller J
Police
Buller J said: "That if a peace officer of his own head takes a person into custody on suspicion, he must prove that there was such a crime committed; but that if he receives a person into custody on a charge preferred by another of felony or a breach of the peace, then he is to be considered as a mere conduit; and if no felony or breach of the peace was committed, the person who preferred the charge alone is answerable."
1 Citers