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False Arrest and Malicious Prosecution

By: Derek Hawkins//July 24, 2017//

False Arrest and Malicious Prosecution

By: Derek Hawkins//July 24, 2017//

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7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Meryl Squires-Cannon v. Dennis White, et al.

Case No.: 16-3118

Officials: POSNER, EASTERBROOK, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

Focus: False Arrest and Malicious Prosecution

The plaintiff and her husband used to own and live on a 400-acre estate and horse farm in Barrington Hills, Illinois (a wealthy suburb of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois). They leased the horse farm, which they called “Horizon Farms,” to a company they owned called Royalty Farms, LLC, which managed the farm’s operations, including the care of the horses, which at one point reached 50 in number. But there was a mortgage on the couple’s property, and it was foreclosed in 2013. The Forest Preserve District of Cook County—a county commission that owns more than 69,000 forested acres in the county—bought the property at the foreclosure sale. Royalty Farms, LLC, was not a party to the foreclosure proceeding, but nevertheless the Circuit Court of Cook County issued an order (called a Dispossession Order), the validity of which has not been challenged, directing the plaintiff and her husband to vacate the property.

The plaintiff continued visiting the property daily to feed or otherwise tend to the remaining horses, although the Dispossession Order had set a deadline of November 18, 2013, for the couple to vacate the property; nine months later the plaintiff was continuing her daily visits. She entered the property once again on the morning of August 13, 2014. This time, however, she was arrested and prosecuted in state court by the Cook County sheriff for criminal trespass—but she was acquitted in a bench trial because the judge could not conclusively determine that she’d ever been told not to enter the property.

The suit accused the defendants of false arrest and malicious prosecution. The accusation had and has no merit, and the district court was therefore right to dismiss the suit. In any event the fact that the police had an alternative did not make the arrest unlawful, for they had an unquestionable right to arrest her because they had probable cause to believe her a criminal trespasser. And remember that although she was prosecuted for the criminal trespass, she was acquitted. She violated the law, but was not punished for the violation, and so has little to complain about. The judgment of the district court dismissing her suit is affirmed.

Affirmed

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.

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