Montgomery Ward & Co., Inc. v. Freeman

SOPER, Circuit Judge.

This action, as originally brought, claimed damages from Montgomery Ward & Company, Inc. for false imprisonment and for malicious prosecution, which were alleged to have resulted from a charge that the plaintiff, Cora Lee Freeman, had stolen a number of zippers from a counter of the defendant’s store in Newport News, Virginia. The complaint adequately charged both offenses; but in the midst of the trial in the District Court the plaintiff’s attorneys were required to elect between the two causes of action, and they chose false imprisonment because of the difficulty of…