Bird v Jones: False Imprisonment and the Total Restraint Rule

In Bird v Jones (1845), the Court of Queen’s Bench held that stopping a person from moving in one direction, while leaving other routes open, is not false imprisonment. The Court drew a line between total restraint, which the tort requires, and a partial obstruction, which is a different kind of wrong. That distinction still anchors how courts describe false imprisonment today.¹

What Happened on Hammersmith Bridge

A regatta on the river drew crowds to Hammersmith Bridge, and the defendant partitioned off part of the public footway to seat paying spectators. Bird tried to walk along the footway and was stopped by the defendant and two policemen. He stayed at the spot for more than half an hour and a scuffle followed, but the path behind him was never closed. He could turn around and go back; he simply could not go forward through the enclosure.¹

The Rule of Total Restraint

The case fixed the standard the tort still uses. False imprisonment requires that a person’s physical liberty be completely restrained within defined limits, with no reasonable means of leaving except by breaking out. Blocking a chosen direction is not enough. If any way out remains, the confinement element is not made out, whatever else the conduct may amount to.¹

How the Judges Reasoned

Three judges made up the majority. Justice Patteson said imprisonment is a total restraint of the person, not a partial obstruction of the will. Justice Coleridge agreed, pointing out that because Bird was free to move in any other direction, he was never imprisoned in the legal sense. Justice Williams said he knew of no definition that would call a person imprisoned while an open route remained available. On that reasoning, the initial obstruction did not amount to false imprisonment.¹

Lord Denman’s Dissent

Lord Denman disagreed. In his view, any unauthorized restraint of a person by force is imprisonment. If someone has a legal right to be on a particular path, forcing them off it interferes with personal liberty, and the existence of another route does not cure that interference. Denman rejected the requirement of a specific boundary and treated the act of pushing someone to go somewhere else against their will as detention in itself. His view lost, but it is often cited alongside the majority as the counter-argument the rule was chosen against.¹

1
British & Irish Legal Information Institute. Bird v Jones [1845] EWHC QB J64