Bennett v. Austro-Americana Steamship Co.

Headnote

Bennett v. Austro-Americana Steamship Co., 170 App. Div. 908 , affirmed.

Appeal, by permission, from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the second judicial department, entered August 2, 1915, unanimously affirming a judgment in favor of plaintiff entered upon a verdict in an action for alleged false imprisonment. Plaintiff alleged that while a passenger on one of defendant’s steamships he was unjustifiably placed under arrest, confined in a stateroom until after the ship docked and that his imprisonment while in the state of New York, or within one maritime league of New York, lasted between the morning of the twenty-seventh, when the boat first came within one maritime league of New York, and continued until late in the afternoon of the same day when he was finally released. Defendant contended that the court was without jurisdiction, the plaintiff being a non-resident and the defendant a foreign corporation, the cause of action having arisen beyond the jurisdiction of the court and before the amendment to section 1780 of the Code in 1913 and upon the ground that- the imprisonment was made by

the captain of the ship acting in a quasi-judicial capacity and. within his authority.