Civil Actions by and against Police Officers
| Published date | 01 October 1955 |
| Author | F. Fieldsend |
| Date | 01 October 1955 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X5502800409 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
CIVIL
ACTIONS
BY
AND
AGAINST
POLICE
OFFICERS
291
Civil
Actions
by
and
against
Police
Officers*
By
SUPERINTENDENT
F.
FIELDSEND,
LL.B. (Hons. Lond.),
Metropolitan Police.
PART
I.
THE wrong
that
gives rise to civil actions is known as Tort. This
is defined by
Salmond'
as
"A
civil wrong for which the remedy is
acommon law action for unliquidated damages
and
which is not
exclusively the breach of a contract or the breach
of
atrust or other
merely equitable obligation." Winfield? on the other hand maintains
there are general principles
of
"tortious
liability" and states "tortious
liability arises from the breach of a duty primarily fixed by law; such
duty is towards persons generally and its breach is redressable by an
action for unliquidated damages."
The distinction between
tort
and
crime is that tort is the infringement
of a private right for which the injured person can obtain compensation
by civil proceedings, whereas a crime is an offence against the State
for which punishment is exacted by the State as the result
of
criminal
proceedings. There is nothing, however, in the nature
of
an act which
determines whether it is a civil injury or a crime,
and
the act may
well be
both;
for example, assaults
and
libel are torts entailing civil
proceedings for damages and both may be punishable as criminal
offences.
TORTIOUS
ACTS
BY
POLICE
OFFICERS
Who is responsible for torts committed by police officers in the
performance
of
their duty?
What
is the position of local authorities?
It
was decided in the case
of
Fisher v. Oldham Corporation»
that
if
police officers appointed by the Watch Committee
of
aBorough
Corporation arrest and detain aperson unlawfully they do not act as
the servants or agents
of
the Corporation so as to render
that
body
liable to an action for imprisonment.
What is the position of the
Crown?
Under
the Crown Proceedings
Act, 1947, the Crown became liable for torts committed by its servants
or agents. The liability
of
the Crown for the torts
of
its officers is
restricted to cases where the officer is appointed by it directly or
indirectly
and
is paid wholely out of the consolidated funds or govern-
ment
funds. The main effect of this is to exclude police officers who are
'"This article is written as being of general interest to police officers,
and
it has
of course, no official backing. '
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