Actually, it was the neighbor who didn’t keep his cattle on his own property who should have gone to court to get his cattle back. In court the issue of reimbursement of feed could be addressed at the same time.
I suppose you could say the guy wanting reimbursement should have returned the cattle and gone to court. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law.” If you give up your cards, you don’t win the pot.
It would be interesting to know just how much the person arrested wanted for feeding those cattle. It may have been an embarrassingly small amount.
I know, and I agree. The farmer who had the cattle should have gone to court, and said he was holding the cattle pending resolution of the affair. The judge would probably have ordered him to return the cattle, and the neighbor to pay.
Unfortunately, once he escalated by tossing the police, government ego came into play.