Arzaga v. Villalba

Hayne, C. This was an action for the recovery of personal property and damages. The plaintiff obtained judgment for the possession of the property, or its value in the sum of $350, and for the sum of $530 damages.

1. The defendant contends that there is no evidence that justifies the award of damages. And it is quite true that there is no evidence of actual damage (the property itself having been returned) beyond a small sum expended in pursuit of the property. But “in any action for the breach of an obligation not arising from contract, where the defendant has been guilty of oppres[192]sion, fraud, or malice, actual or presumed, the jury, in addition to the actual damages, may give damages for the sake of example, and by way of punishing the defendant.” (Civ. Code, sec. 3294.)

And we think that the circumstances of the case justified the award which the jury made. The plaintiff was the daughter of the defendant, and lived in his house with her two children, one of whom was about four years old, and the other a baby. The property consisted principally of her clothes and furniture. There is evidence tending to show that, about ten days after her mother’s death, the defendant became angry with the plaintiff because she refused to try to have her mother’s will set aside; that on January 3, 1889, she went to a neighboring town to get some medicine, and on her return found that defendant had put new locks on the doors, so that she could not get in. She says: “I slept in an outhouse the night of January 3d; it is an unfinished house, a little farm-house, an old house that they use to keep grain in.” It appears that this house was not unoccupied, and that she did not have to sleep on the floor, but had a bed. But she “was very sick at the time, and not able to work.” And one of the neighbors to whom she applied says: “I saw her the next morning; the child was with her; the child was running at the nose and eyes, and he seemed to be all drawn up, like he was starved during the night; she looked miserable, and said she didn’t sleep at all.” The next day she asked her father for her things, but he refused to give them to her, and retained them until they were taken from him under the process of the court.

There is evidence tending to contradict some of the foregoing; but wherever there is a conflict, it must be presumed that the evidence tending to support the judgment is true. And assuming that it is true, we think that there was such oppression on the part of the defendant as justified the award of the jury.