Next: the jury were misdirected as to malice. The mere fact that the defendant had an indirect motive, however improper, in instituting the prosecution does not show malice. The malice required in this action is express malice in fact, not mere malice in law. In the judgment of Lords Mansfield and Loughborough, in Johnstone v. Sutton,[[394]] it is said:[[395]] “From the want of probable cause, malice may be, and most commonly is, implied. The knowledge of the defendant is also implied.” The jury ought therefore to have been told that the indirect motive was quite consistent with absence of malice, unless the defendant knew (not simply believed) that there was no probable cause, or unless there was some evidence of express malice towards the plaintiff.
Lord Denman, C. J. It would be quite outrageous if, where a party is proved to believe that a charge is unfounded, it were to be held that he could have reasonable and probable cause. Reference has been made to Turner v. Ambler, 10 Q. B. 252, where there was an allusion to a decision of my Brother Maule, upheld afterwards in the Common Pleas,[[396]] to the effect that reasonable and probable cause cannot exist without belief. There may possibly be some difficulty in distinguishing the case last mentioned from some others: but I think that belief is essential to the existence of reasonable and probable cause: I do not mean abstract belief, but a belief upon which a party acts. Where there is no such belief, to hold that the party had reasonable and probable cause would be destructive of common sense.[[397]] Proof of the absence of belief is almost always involved in the proof of malice. In Turner v. Ambler there was no point directly made at the trial as to want of belief: the only question was whether the facts of themselves bore out the probability and reasonableness. But, where a plaintiff takes upon himself to prove that, assuming the facts to be as the defendant contends, still the defendant did not believe them, we ought not to entertain any doubt that it is proper to leave the question of belief as a fact to the jury. It is not absolutely necessary that this belief should be the motive on which he acted: he may act from malice, and yet, if there was reasonable and probable cause in which he believed, the case against him must fail.
Rule refused as to misdirection.
VANDERBILT v. MATHIS
Supreme Court, City of New York, February, 1856.
Reported in 5 Duer, 304.
By the Court, Bosworth, J.[[398]]—To maintain an action for malicious prosecution, three facts, if controverted, must be established:
1. That the prosecution is at an end, and was determined in favor of the plaintiff.
2. The want of probable cause.
3. Malice.
In such an action, it is necessary to give some evidence of the want of probable cause. It is insufficient to prove a mere acquittal; that, alone, is not prima facie evidence of the want of probable cause. Gorton v. De Angelis, 6 Wend. 418.
It is equally essential, that the former prosecution should appear to have been maliciously instituted. Malice may be inferred from the want of probable cause, but such an inference is one which a jury is not required to make, at all events, merely because they may find the absence of probable cause.