False Imprisonment - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition false-imprisonment

Definition :

False imprisonment, restraining personal liberty without lawful authority, for which offence the law has not only decreed a punishment as a public crime, but has also given a private reparation to the party as well by removing the actual confinement for the present by habeas corpus, as by subjecting the wrongdoer to an action of trespass, etc., usually called an action of false imprisonment, on account of the damage sustained by the loss of time and liberty. It must amount to a total restraint of the plaintiff's liberty for some period, however short, see Bird v. Jones, (1845) 7 QB 742. As to the persons liable, see Walters v. W.H. Smith & Son, Ltd., (1914) 1 KB 595; Herd v. Weardale Steel Co., 1915 AC 67. The onus of proving the defence of reasonable or probable cause lies on the defendant. An action for false imprisonment must not be confused with one for malicious prosecution where the onus of proving absence of reasonable and probable cause lies on the plaintiff, Sewell v. National Telephone Co., (1907) 1 KB 557. Consult Addison on Torts, Clerk and Lindsell on Torts; and see Warner v. Riddiford, (1858) 4 CBNS 180 (204); Brown v. Chapman, (1848) 6 CB 365; Lambert v. G.E. Ry., (1909) 2 KB 776 (arrest by railway police).

A restraint of a person in a bounded area without justification or consent, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 618.