Home > West's Encyclopedia of American Law > False Arrest

A TORT (a civil wrong) that consists of an unlawful restraint of an individual's personal liberty or freedom of movement by another purporting to act according to the law.

The term false arrest is sometimes used interchangeably with that of the tort of FALSE IMPRISONMENT, and a false arrest is one method of committing a false imprisonment. A false arrest must be perpetrated by one who asserts that he or she is acting pursuant to legal authority, whereas a false imprisonment is any unlawful confinement. For example, if a sheriff arrests a person without any PROBABLE CAUSE or reasonable basis, the sheriff has committed the torts of false arrest and false imprisonment. The sheriff has acted under the assumption of legal authority to deprive a person unlawfully of...