I may here return to the case of goods in a chest delivered under
lock and key, or in a bale, and the like. It is a rule of the
criminal law, that, if a bailee of such a chest or bale
wrongfully sells the entire chest or bale, he does not commit
larceny, but if he breaks bulk he does, because in the former
case he does not, and in the latter he does, commit a trespass.
/2/ The reason sometimes offered is, that, by breaking bulk, the
bailee determines the bailment, and that the goods at once revest
in the possession of the bailor. This is, perhaps, an
unnecessary, as well as inadequate fiction. /3/ The rule comes
from the Year Books, and the theory of the Year Books was, that,
although the chest was delivered to the bailee, the goods inside
of it were not, and this theory was applied to civil as well as
criminal cases. The bailor has the power and intent to exclude
the bailee from the goods, and therefore may be said to be in
possession of them as against the bailee. /4/
[225] On the other hand, a case in Rhode Island /1/ is against
the view here taken. A man bought a safe, and then, wishing to
sell it again, sent it to the defendant, and gave him leave to
keep his books in it until sold. The defendant found some
bank-notes stuck in a crevice of the safe, which coming to the
plaintiff's ears he demanded the safe and the money. The
defendant sent back the safe, but refused to give up the money,
and the court sustained him in his refusal. I venture to think
this decision wrong. Nor would my opinion be changed by assuming,
what the report does not make perfectly clear, that the defendant
received the safe as bailee, and not as servant or agent, and
that his permission to use the safe was general. The argument of
the court goes on the plaintiff's not being a finder. The
question is whether he need be. It is hard to believe that, if
the defendant had stolen the bills from the safe while it was in
the owner's hands, the property could not have been laid in the
safe-owner, /2/ or that the latter could not have maintained
trover for them if converted under those circumstances. Sir James
Stephen seems to have drawn a similar conclusion from Cartwright
v. Green and Merry v. Green; /3/ but I believe that no warrant
for it can be found in the cases, and still less for the reason
suggested.
It will be understood, however, that Durfee v. Jones is perfectly
consistent with the view here maintained of the [226] general
nature of the necessary intent, and that it only touches the
subordinate question, whether the intent to exclude must be
directed to the specific thing, or may be even unconsciously
included in a larger intent, as I am inclined to believe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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