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220 N.C. 519

17 S.E.2d 669

State v. . Eurell

Supreme Court of North Carolina

Decided December 10, 1941

Supreme Court of North Carolina · decided 1941-12-10

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1941-12-10

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently January 2017

4 state decisions

2019411950196019701980199020002010decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

BajbNhill, J.

¶1 One who receives money for safekeeping is not an agent, consignee, clerk, employee or servant. He is a bailee if under tbe agreement of tbe parties be is to return tbe identical money received, and debtor if be is to use tbe money and return its equivalent on demand. Neither “bailee” nor “debtor” was included in our embezzlement statute, C. S., 4268, prior to 1941.

¶2 An interesting and comprehensive history of tbe embezzlement statute is contained in tbe opinion of Stacy, C. J., in S. v. Whitehurst, 212 N. C., 300, 193 S. E., 657. Its meaning and its applicability only to tbe classes of persons therein named is fully discussed. It is there said “tbe embezzlement statute begins by defining tbe classes of persons who may fall within its condemnation, or who may commit tbe statutory crime of embezzlement, and as it is a penal statute, creating a new offense, it cannot be extended by construction to persons not within tbe classes designated. 2 Bishop, Crim. Law., sec. 331. In other words, if tbe statute be so worded as not to include tbe defendant, bis office, or bis status, an indictment thereunder will not lie against bim.” S. v. Keith, 126 N. C., 1114; Calkins v. S., 18 Ohio S., 366; 98 Am. Decision, 121. Further discussion is unnecessary.

¶3 Tbat tbe General Assembly, by cb. 31, Public Laws 1941, added “bailee” to tbe classes of persons embraced in tbe statute constitutes a legislative declaration tbat it. was not intended tbat “agent, consignee, servant or employee” should include a bailee.

¶4 Tbe motion for judgment as of nonsuit should have been allowed.

¶5 Reversed.

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