Woolford v. Denbow

FOX, P. J.

Plaintiff, the registered owner of a certain automobile, sued the City of Pomona and two of its police officers for conversion of the vehicle. The court rendered judgment for the defendants. Plaintiff has appealed.

Plaintiff claimed that the two officers, as a personal favor to his former wife, required a party in rightful possession of the vehicle to give it up and deliver it to her. The defendants asserted that the officers were on the scene in response to a regular police call made in the normal course of business.

On June 18, 1960, Joyce Ada Woolf or d, then wife of the plaintiff, went to the home of Kenneth E. and Harriet Kampmiar at 640 West Third Street, in the City of Pomona. Mrs. Woolf or d demanded a Corvair automobile which she claimed belonged to her. By the time of the trial Harriet Kampmiar had married the plaintiff herein.

Officer Denbow testified he did not know Joyce Woolf or d before the event above mentioned; that he went to the above address by reason of a radio dispatch. Officer Outhier testified that he received a call from the Communications Division of the Pomona Police Department to go to the above address; that there was a disturbance of the peace at that place. The officers were in different police vehicles.

Joyce Woolford testified that she did not know the officers

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before they came to the scene of the disturbance; that she asked Mr. Kampmiar to go to Jack Geiger’s house and call the police. Geiger testified he called the police at the request of Mr. Kampmiar who stated that Mrs. Woolf ord asked him to call the police and that he asked Geiger to make the call.

At the scene, Mrs. Kampmiar handed the keys to the Corvair to Mrs. Woolf ord; Mr. Kampmiar unlocked the garage. Mrs. Woolf ord backed the Corvair out of the garage and drove away. The officers then left.

Prior to the trial, plaintiff caused Ralph Parker, Pomona Chief of Police, to be served with a subpoena duces tecum requiring him to produce at the trial certain police records relating to calls made to the police department during a five-day period (June 16 to 20, inclusive) relative to a disturbance at the Kampmiar home and any reports the officers may have made as a result of their investigation of this disturbance. Chief Parker did not appear at the trial.