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14 Cal. 410

Griffith v. Bogardus

California Supreme Court

Decided July 1, 1859

California Supreme Court · decided 1859-07-01

McCormick was agent of Wells, Fargo & Co. at Mud Springs. Being without means, as was generally known, he induced plaintiff to advance four thousand dollars with which to carry on the gold dust and banking business, in connection with his agency for Wells, Fargo & Co. Plaintiff advanced the money, with the understanding that the business was to be his, and McCormick was to receive a salary of seventy-five dollars per month, or a commission on the net profits.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1859-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently June 1923

3 state decisions

2018591860187018801890190019101920decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Baldwin, J.

¶1delivered the opinion of the Court—Field, C. J. and Cope, J. concurring.

¶2Action in the nature of replevin, to recover one thousand eight hundred dollars taken by defendant as Sheriff, under process, as the property of one McCormick. McCormick was a witness, and testified that this money was taken from a safe in his possession belonging to Wells, Fargo & Co. who had four hundred dollars in the safe, the balance being the money of plaintiff. McCormick was present at the levy by the officer, and was agent for Wells, Fargo & Co. and when the plaintiff made the claim for the money taken, interposed no objection. The ground taken by defend*413ant on appeal is, that there was no segregation of this money sued for from the mass in the safe, so as to enable the plaintiff to bring and maintain his suit. But we think the position, however plausible, is not sustained. As McCormick was the agent of Wells, Fargo & Co. to keep the money, he had authority to retain it in their safe, the proper place of its deposit, and when he recognized the claim of the plaintiff, before the one thousand eight hundred dollars was taken away, to the latter sum, it was as if he had elected for Wells, Fargo & Co. to hold the four hundred dollars as theirs. It was, in other words, as if a division and allotment had been made of the money in the safe, according to the respective rights of the owners.

¶3At least, there was evidence enough to go to the jury as to this matter of severance, and the Court did not err in refusing a non-suit.

¶4Judgment affirmed.

¶5On rehearing the same judgment was rendered.

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