Katie Ruth Anderson v. J. T. Robinson, Individually and as Police Chief of the City of Natchez, Mississippi, Etc.

One hundred-fifty plaintiffs appeal, as an abuse of discretion, the refusal of the trial court to grant a new trial on the ground of grossly inadequate damages awarded them by a jury for false imprisonment. We affirm.

Phases of this matter have now occupied our court four times. As a result of panel and en banc decisions, 1 Appellee Robinson, then Police Chief of Natchez, was found liable for false imprisonment of racial protest demonstrators in 1965. On remand for assessment of damages, seven of the 157 plaintiffs appeared and testified to specific individual damages resulting from their…