Squires

The plaintiff is prosecuting this appeal from a judgment denying his prayer for damages in an action against the Southern Pacific Company for malicious prosecution.

The complaint charges that defendant, through one of its agents, procured plaintiff’s arrest and instituted, in the justice’s court of the city of Santa Barbara, a criminal action against him, and that said action was begun and prosecuted against Mm, by and through the defendant, maliciously and without probable cause.

The circumstances leading up to the arrest and criminal prosecution grew out of the fact that plaintiff, through some mistake—the blame for which is not clearly accounted for in the evidence—boarded a train of the defendant company at Ventura, on his way to Santa Barbara, and presented for his passage a ticket reading from Santa Barbara to Ventura. The conductor refused to accept the ticket and demanded that plaintiff pay his fare. This, plaintiff refused to do. There was some altercation between him and the conductor, but he was permitted to ride to Santa Barbara. On reaching that city, the conductor pointed out the plaintiff to one William Beck, apparently a police officer on duty at the station,…