On January 25, 2010, while at work at The Oaks Nursing Home in West Monroe, Sheriff Royce Toney of Ouachita Parish wrongfully arrested Ms. Annette Brown for aggravated battery. Despite showing Dep. David Germany of the Ouachita Parish Sheriff’s Office (“OPSO”) her drivers license, which listed an address separate from the one on the arrest warrant, she was still taken into custody. Ms. Brown then had to gather $1,255 to pay a bail bondsmen.
Upon release, she brought hospital records showing where she was on the night of the alleged battery and her driver’s license. The charges were quickly dropped. Despite several requests for a return of her $1,255, city officials replied there was nothing they could do about it. Ms. Brown then filed suit demanding general damages for wrongful arrest, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution.
OPSO filed for, and was granted, summary judgment asserting that it was MPD that gave the wrong name to the issuing magistrate. OPSO argued that it acted pursuant to a facially valid warrant, while Ms. Brown argued that someone likely in the OPSO mistakenly grabbed her DMV record instead of the real culprit, Annette Bryant. While ruling in favor of OPSO, the court explained that a “suspicion of what might have happened” is not sufficient evidence to connect OPSO to the warrant. Upon appeal, the court used a duty-risk analysis to determine whether to impose liability under La. C.C. art. 2315 A, which holds “every act whatever of a man that causes damage to another obliges him by whose fault it happened to repair it.”