Blakey v. Johnson. ant, altered it to a note for $120, and then passed it to the payee. It was held that the defendant was not liable. In Bank of U. S. v. Russell, etc., 3 Yeates, 391, the defendants drew and signed a promissory note payable to Joseph Thomas or order, at sixty days. The note was made for the accommodation of Thomas and delivered to him. He, without their knowledge or consent, altered the date from the 9th to the 19th of the same month, and then discounted it to the plaintiff, who was ignorant that the alteration had been made. The defendants were held not liable. In Wood v. Steele, 6 Wall. 80, Steele & Newson made a promissory note, payable to their own order one year after date, and indorsed it to Wood. Upon the trial it appeared that Newson applied to Allis, the agent of Wood, for a loan of money on the note of himself and Steele. Wood assented, and Newson was to procure the note. Wood left the money with Allis to be paid over when the note was produced. The note was afterward delivered by Newson, and the money paid to him. Steele received no part of it. At that time it appeared on the face of the note that September had been stricken out and October 11th substituted as the date. This was done after Steele had signed the note, and without his knowledge or consent. These circumstances were unknown to Wood and Allis. The court instructed the jury "that if the said alteration was made after the note was signed by the defendant Steele, and by him delivered to the other maker, Newson, Steele was discharged from all liability on said note.” 66 The Supreme Court, without adverting to the fact that the alteration in the date was patent on the face of the note, held the instruction right, and that the fact that the alteration was made before the note passed from the hands of Newson, could not affect the result. He had no authority to make it. We have considered the case thus far without stating the fact that there was sufficient blank space above the signatures and the date to contain the words inserted by Atkin. The word "date" at the end of the note as originally written is the only word on the line, and is on the extreme left side of the paper, and the signature of Atkins, which is first, is in the second line below it; the date, "September 11, 1874," is on the line between them; thus leaving the whole of the line on which the word "date" is written blank, except that part occupied by that word, and on that line the words Blakey v. Johnson. "interest to be paid semi-annually" are written. The note is on commercial note paper, and the words and letters appear a little crowded, but not sufficiently so to readily attract the attention of an ordinary observer. There was ample room on that line after the word "date" in which to write the date of the note, and it might have been placed there instead of being placed on the line. below it, or the signature of Atkins might have been written on the same line with the date of the note; and if either had been done, it would not have been possible to introduce the added words. without interlining them, which would probably have been such patent evidence that the note had been altered as to have required the appellee to make inquiry or take it at his peril. Without that unnecessary blank space the alteration could not have been successfully made. "There is a general principle which pervades the universal lawmerchant respecting alterations, a principle necessary to the protection of the innocent and prudent from the negligence and fraud of others. That is, that when the drawer of the bill or maker of the note has himself, by careless execution of the instrument, left room for any alteration to be made, either by insertion or erasure, without defacing it, or exciting the suspicions of a careful man, he will be liable upon it to any bona fide holder without notice when the opportunity which he has afforded has been embraced, and the instrument filled up with a larger amount of different terms than those which it bore when he signed it. The true principle applicable to such cases is that the party who puts his paper in circulation invites the public to receive it of any one having it in possession with apparent title, and he is estopped to urge an actual defect in that which, through his act, ostensibly has none. The inspection of the paper itself furnishes the only criterion by which a stranger to whom it is offered can test its character, and when that inspection reveals nothing to arouse the suspicions of a prudent man, he will not be permitted to suffer when there has been actual alteration." Daniel on Negotiable Instruments, § 1405. This principle is well sustained by adjudged cases (Garard v. Haddan, 67 Penn. St. 83; 5 Am. Rep. 412; Visher v. Webster, 13 Cal. 158; Rainbolt v. Eddy, 34 Iowa. 440; 11 Am. Rep. 152; Harvey V. Smith, 55 Ill. 224), and seems to us decisive of this case, especially in a court of equity, into which the appellant has come to be relieved. Pollock's Administrator v. Louisville. The chancellor will not aid those who come to him for relief when they appear to have been guilty of the negligence which caused the mischief of which they complain. Judgment affirmed. NOTE BY THE REPORTER.-For the general doctrine on the subject of alteration, see Draper v. Wood, 17 Am. Rep. 92, and note, 97; Palmer v. Largent, 25 id. 479, and note, p. 481; Manufacturers and Merchants' Bank v. Follett, 23 id 418; Burlingame v. Brewster, 22 id. 177, and note, 179; Horst v. Wagner, id. 255; White v. Continental National Bank, 21 id. 612; Glover v. Robbins, 20 id. 272; Whitesides v. Northern Bank of Kentucky, 19 id. 74; Benedict v. Cowden, 10 id. 382, and note, p. 389; McGrath v. Clark, 15 id. 372. On the point of laches, the principal case is in harmony with the Pennsylvania doctrine (Brown v. Reed, 21 Am. Rep. 75); but opposed to that of Michigan (Holmes v. Trumper, 7 id. 666, and note, p. 669); and to that of Massachusetts (Greenfield Savings Bank v. Stowell, 25 id. 67). See, also, Coburn v. Webb, ante, p. 15. POLLOCK'S ADMINISTRATOR V. LOUISVILLE. (13 Bush, 221.) Municipal corporation responsibility for negligence of police. Police officers, appointed by a city, in making arrests for felonies act not as agents of the city, but of the State and so, where police officers of a city in arresting a woman for infanticide, conducted so carelessly that she died in consequence, held that the city was not liable in damages.* A CTION for damages. The opinion states the facts. Fountaine T. Fox, Jr., for appellant. 2. A policeman, being appointed and paid by the city, is an officer or agent of the city of Louisville, and the city is liable for injuries done by such officer or agent, under the general law making corporations liable for injuries done by their agents. Charter of Louisville of 1870, §§ 32, 34; Speed & Worthington v. Crawford, 3 Metc. 210; 2 Session Acts, 1859-60, 510; Dillon on Corp., § 772; Atwater v. Baltimore, 3 Md. 460; Johnson v. New Orleans, 5 La. Ann. 100; Stewart v. New Orleans, 9 id. 461; Dargan v. Mayor of Mobile, 31 Ala. 467; Clague v. New Orleans, 13 La. Ann. 275; Nowell and Wife v. * See, also, Elliott v. Philadelphia (75 Penn. St. 342), 15 Am. Rep. 591; Jewett v. New Haven (38 Conn. 368), 9 Am. Rep. 382; Wheeler v. Cincinnati (19 Ohio St. 19), 2 Am. Rep. 368; Fisher v. Boston (104 Mass. 87), 6 Am Rep. 196; Hayes v. Oshkosh (33 Wis. 314), 14 Am. Rep 760; Torbush v Norwich (38 Conn. 225), 9 Am. Rep. 395; ng v. Lansing (35 Iowa, 495), 14 Am. Rep. 499; Maxmilian v. Mayor (62 N. Y. 160), 20 Am. Rep. 468. ་ Pollock's Administrator v. Louisville. Wright, 3 Allen, 166; Rounds v. Mansfields, 38 Me. 588; Sutton v. T. L. Burnett, for appellee. COFER, J. The appellant, as administrator of Hattie Pollock, deceased, brought this action against the city of Louisville to recover damages, under § 3 of ch. 57 of the Gen. Stat. for the loss of the life of his intestate through the alleged willful negligence of certain police officers. The city, by its answer, put in issue all the material allegations of the petition. At the conclusion of the evidence the court, on the motion of the city attorney, directed the jury to find for the defendant, which was done, and a judgment was rendered in bar of the action. From that judgment this appeal is prosecuted. The first objection taken by the learned counsel for the appellant is, that the court erred in giving a peremptory instruction after evidence had been introduced by the city. But that error, if it be one, did not prejudice the substantial rights of the appellant, if, as contended for the city, there was no evidence even conducing to establish a cause of action against it. The charter requires that the city shall have and maintain a police force. In obedience to that requirement, a police force was organized by the appointment of the necessary officer and policemen. Two policemen appointed by the city arrested the appellant's intestate, without a warrant, on a charge of infanticide, and removed her to the jail used in common by the city and the Commonwealth. It was alleged, and the evidence conduced in some degree to establish, that the officers knew the condition of the intestate, and were informed that it would greatly endanger her life to remove her, and that her death was caused by her removal. Whether the evidence would have warranted the jury in finding that the officers were guilty of willful negligence in removing her, and that her death was caused by the removal, we need intimate no opinion; for, conceding both these facts to have been established, we think the appellant failed to make out his case. Pollock's Administrator v. Louisville. is or The statute provides that, "if the life of another person lost or destroyed by the willful neglect of another person corporation, their agent or servants, then the widow, heir, or personal representative of the deceased shall have a right to sue such person corporation, and recover punitive damages for the loss or or destruction of the life aforesaid." Conceding (without intent to so decide) that municipal corporations are embraced by the statute, we proceed to inquire whether the city is liable under its provisions for the willful negligence of policemen appointed by it in making arrest upon charges of felony. The crime with which the intestate was charged was an offense against the Commonwealth, and not against the city. The policemen were therefore not engaged about the municipal and local business of the city, nor in the discharge of any duty they owed to it, and consequently they did not make the arrest or remove the intestate as agents or servants of the city, but as officers of the Commonwealth. If it be said they had no warrant and no reasonable grounds to believe that a felony had been committed, and consequently had no right to make the arrest at all, it will be sufficient to reply that if the act was done in mere wantonness and wholly without authority, the maxim respondeat superior has no application. It is only when the servant is engaged about the master's business that it applies. But we do not regard the question of the liability of the city as on open one. Judge DILLON, in his treatise on the Law of Municipal Corpora tions (§ 773), thus states the law on this point: Agreeably to the principles just mentioned police officers appointed by a city are not its agents or servants, so as to render it responsible for their unlawful or negligent acts in the discharge of their duties; and accordingly a city is not liable for an assault and battery committed by its police officers, though done in an attempt to enforce an ordinance of the city; nor for an arrest made by them which was illegal for want of a warrant; nor for their unlawful acts of violence whereby, in the exercise of their duty of suppressing an unlawful assemblage of slaves, the plaintiff's slave was killed." The author cites Buttrick v. Lowell, 1 Allen, 172; Kimball v. Boston, id. 417; Pesterfield v. Vickers, 3 Coldw. 205; Ready v. Mayor, etc., 6 Ala. 327; Dargan v. Mobile, 31 id. 469; Richmond v. Long, adm'r, 17 Gratt. 375. |