McInerney

This is an appeal from a judgment in the plaintiff’s favor in an action for damages for an alleged assault and false imprisonment. The cause was tried before a jury, which awarded the plaintiff the sum of two thousand dollars as compensatory damages and five hundred dollars as exemplary damages.

There were four defendants other than the appellant herein who were at the time of the plaintiff’s alleged injuries its employees. As to three of these—Henry Jones, M. Glennon, and John W. Lynch—a nonsuit was granted. As to the other codefendant, Charles G. Fitch, the verdict of the jury was in his favor. A motion for a new trial was made by the other defendant, United Railroads, which the trial court denied, whereupon this appeal was taken.

The alleged assault upon and imprisonment of the plaintiff from which his claim for damages arose occurred in the city of San Francisco on the evening of August 22, 1917. A strike was at that time in progress among many of the employees of the United Railroads. This strike was being resisted by the latter which, with the aid of its nonstriking employees and other persons replacing the strikers, was endeavoring to operate its cars upon the streets of…