lic policy and in the interest of the public service, he should not be held to be liable in civil damages because it transpires that, through mere error of judgment, he based the issuance of the warrant of arrest upon a complaint insufficient in law to charge the offense thereby sought to be stated. We base this conclusion upon the obvious proposition that if a judicial officer, whether of high or low degree in point of jurisdiction and dignity, were to be subject to the harassment incident to a civil action for damages by every suitor appearing as a litigant or as an accused in a criminal proceeding in his court, who has been disappointed over some ruling or judg. ment made or entered against him, the just and orderly administration of perhaps the most important department of the public service might be greatly handicapped and impaired, if, indeed, the ends thereof not wholly frustrated, and that public policy requires that no proceeding in law which might lead to such a situation should be countenanced or upheld.

It is true that, in some of the early cases, it seems to have been laid down that, while a civil action for damages for a wrongful act by a judicial officer, when purporting to be exercising the lawful jurisdiction of the court or tribunal of which he is the presiding judge, will not lie against a judge of a court of superior or general jurisdiction, even though such act may be shown to have been in excess of the jurisdiction of such judge, or done with malicious or corrupt motives, yet such an action will lie against a judge of an inferior court possessing special or limited jurisdiction if, in doing the act, such judge exceeds the powers expressly conferred upon him by law as such judge or upon the court of which he is the judge. (See cases cited in Wyatt v. Arnot, 7 Cal. App. 221, [94 Pac. 86].)

There are other cases, however, that hold that, upon principles of sound public policy, and to the end that the independence of the judiciary as a system shall always be maintained, the rule applicable to judges of courts of superior and general jurisdiction, exempting such judges from liability to an action for damages at the hands of a suitor claiming to have been injuriously affected by acts done in excess of their judicial powers, should be alike applicable to all judicial officers or public officers clothed with and whose duties require the exercise of judicial powers, including justices of the peace

and like inferior judicial officers whose jurisdiction, as established by law, is special and limited. The early case of Grove v. Van Duyn, 44 N. J. L. 654, [42 Am. Rep. 648], holds to this view. In that case, which, in its general aspect, resembles the case at bar, a justice of the peace had authorized the arrest of the plaintiff and held him to bail for unlawfully carrying away bundles of cornstalks, "under a statute which came no nearer to specifying such an offense than carrying away a stack of corn." It was held that the justice was not civilly liable. So much is said in the opinion in that case that is instructive and enlightening upon the question involved in the case before us, that we feel justified in quoting therefrom in extenso. The court said:

"Most of the general principles of law pertaining to that branch of this controversy which relates to the alleged liability of the defendant in this suit, who was a justice of the peace, are so completely settled as not to be open to discussion. The doctrine that an action will not lie against a judge for wrongful commitment, or for an erroneous judgment, or for any other act, made or done by him in his judicial capacity, is as thoroughly established as are any other of the primary maxims of the law. Such an exemption is absolutely essential to the very existence, in any valuable form, of the judicial office itself, for a judge could not be either respected or independent if his motives for his official actions or his conclusions, no matter how erroneous, could be put in question at the instance of every malignant or disappointed suitor. Hence we find this judicial immunity has been conferred by the laws of every civilized people. That it exists in this state in its fullest extent has been repeatedly declared by our own courts. Such was pronounced by the supreme court to be the admitted principle in the cases of Little v. Moore, 4 N. J. L. 74, 75, [7 Am. Dec. 574]; Taylor v. Doremus, 16 N. J. L. 473, 476; Mangold v. Thorpe, 33 N. J. L. 134, 137; and by this court in Loftus v. Fraz, 43 N. J. L. 667. To this extent there is no uncertainty or difficulty whatever in the subject.

"But the embarrassment arises where an attempt is made to express, with perfect definiteness, where it is that acts done by a judge, and which purport to be judicial acts, are such within the meaning of the rule to which reference has just been made. It is said everywhere in the text-books and decisions that the officer, in order to entitle himself to claim the

immunity that belongs to judicial conduct, must restrict his action within the bounds of his jurisdiction, and jurisdiction has been defined to be 'the authority of the law to act officially in the particular matter in hand': Cooley on Torts, 417. But these maxims, although true in a general way, are not sufficiently broad to embrace the principle of immunity that appertains to a court or judge exercising a general authority. Their defect is that they leave out of the account all those cases in which the officer, in the discharge of his public duty, is bound to decide whether or not a particular case, under the circumstances as presented to him, is within his jurisdiction, and he falls into error in arriving at his conclusion. In such instances, the judge, in point of fact and law, has no jurisdiction according to the definition just given, over 'the particular matter in hand,' and yet in my opinion, plainly, he is not responsible for the results that wait upon his mistake. And it is upon this precise point that we find confusion in the decisions.

"There are certainly cases which hold that if a magistrate, in the regular discharge of his functions, causes an arrest to be made under his warrant on a complaint which does not contain the charge of a crime cognizable by him, he is answerable in an action for the injury that has ensued. But I think these cases are deflections from the correct rule in that they make no allowance for matters of doubt and difficulty. If the facts presented for the decision of the justice are of uncertain signification with respect to their legal effect, and he decides one way, and exercises a cognizance over the case, if the superior court in which the question arises in a suit against the justice differs with him on this close legal question, is he open by reason of his error to an attack by action? If the officer's exemption from liability is to depend on the question whether he had jurisdiction over the particular case, it is clear that such officer is often triable under such conditions, because the higher court, in deciding a doubtful point of law, may have declared that some element was wanting in the complaint which was essential to bring the case within the judicial competency of the magistrate."

In the case of Hayes v. Hutchinson & Shields, 81 Wash. 894, [142 Pac. 865], a justice of the peace was proceeded against in an action for damages for causing the arrest of the plaintiff on an alleged illegal warrant of arrest, the claim

being that the complaint upon which said warrant was issued did not state a case against the plaintiff under the “arrest and bail" statute of the state of Washington. The supreme court of that state held that the action against the justice of the peace could not be maintained, and, in discussing the principles upon which cases of the character of the case at bar are to be decided and disposed of, uses the following language:

"Public policy demands, and the better reasoned cases hold, that a judge of inferior and limited jurisdiction, such as a justice of the peace, is not liable in damages for an unlawful arrest upon process issued by him in the absence of maliceand no malice is alleged-in a case which is colorably though not really within his jurisdiction," citing a large number of cases, among which is the Alabama case of Broom v. Douglass, 175 Ala. 268, [44 L. R. A. (N. S.) 164, 57 South. 860], in which the syllabus states the rule as declared therein as follows: "A judge of limited jurisdiction is not personally liable for issuing a warrant of arrest which he had no authority to do, in a case of which he had jurisdiction of the subject matter, if someone apparently qualified to do so appeared before him and made the requisite complaint, stating some facts which enter into and may under some conditions, or in co-operation with unstated facts, constitute a criminal offense, or stating some fact or facts which bear general similitude to a fact or facts designated by law as constituting the offense."

There are many other cases to the same effect as the above cases and among these the following may be mentioned: Feld v. Loftis, 240 Ill. 105, [88 N. E. 281]; Brooks v. Mangan, 86 Mich. 576, [24 Am. St. Rep. 137, 49 N. W. 633]; Bohri v. Barnett, 144 Fed. 389, [75 C. C. A. 327]; Robertson v. Parker, 99 Wis. 652, [67 Am. St. Rep. 889, 75 N. W. 423]; McIntosh v. Bullard, 95 Ark. 227, [129 S. W. 85].

The case of De Courcey v. Cox, 94 Cal. 665, [30 Pac. 95], cited and relied upon by the appellant, is, in the facts, wholly unlike the case at bar, and is therefore not in point. It appears from the opinion in that case that a complaint was made before the defendant, as justice of the peace, charging the plaintiff in the action for damages against said justice. with refusing to return the sum of twenty dollars, alleged to have been overpaid said plaintiff by the El Cajon Vineyard

Company; that the justice, upon the complaint so made, issued a warrant of arrest upon which the plaintiff was arrested and taken before the said justice of the peace, and required to and did plead to said charge; that, after trial, the justice rendered judgment that plaintiff restore said amount of twenty dollars, or be committed to the county jail for twenty days, and that, pursuant to the judgment so rendered, the justice issued a commitment and delivered it to an officer, who executed it by imprisoning and confining the plaintiff in the county jail for the period of three days. The supreme court held that the complaint stated a cause of action in favor of the plaintiff and against the defendant (the justice of the peace) for damages for false imprisonment. But readily it will be observed that absolutely no public offense whatever under the law was stated in the so-called complaint filed with the justice against the plaintiff. The justice had no jurisdiction of the subject matter of the complaint, so far as a criminal charge was concerned. The complaint merely alleged that the plaintiff, by a mistake, had been overpaid, and there was no pretense, so far as the complaint disclosed, that he obtained or even retained the amount overpaid through any criminal act on his part. If the so-called complaint disclosed anything at all, it was merely a civil action for money had and received, and obviously the proceeding taken by the justice under the complaint was wholly and entirely coram non judice. It was not a case which called for the arrest of the person of the plaintiff. It was, as before suggested, in no sense a criminal case or a proceeding in which the plaintiff was accused of committing a public offense. The facts pleaded by the plaintiff in his action against the justice of the peace might, therefore, be held sufficient to raise the implication that malice characterized the acts of the justice of the peace in issuing the warrant for the arrest of and in committing the plaintiff to imprisonment.

In the present case, as we have shown, the offense attempted to be charged against the plaintiff is within the general jurisdiction of the justice's court and of the defendant, as a judge of such court. The subject matter of the complaint, though not well pleaded, the defendant, as a justice, had jurisdiction of. His failure to acquire jurisdiction of the person of the plaintiff lay entirely in the failure to state in the complaint facts sufficient to show that such an offense had been com