Halyard v. Dechelman

Decided January 15, 1860

Supreme Court of Missouri · decided 1860-01-15

This was an action to recover damages for the loss of a watch alleged to have been left with, the defendant, a watchmaker and jeweller, for repairs. Plaintiff alleged that the watch, through the carelessness and negligence of the defendant, was lost, destroyed or stolen.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1860-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently August 1977

4 state decisions

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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Scott, Judge,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2i A watchmaker, who receives a watch to repair for hire, is pound to use ordinary diligence for the safe keeping of the |vatch left with him for that purpose. Ordinary diligence is |hat degree of care in the preservation of a thing which a ¡prudent father of a family would use for the safe keeping of :it if it was his own. (Stopy on Bailments, § 429, 398.)

¶3£ The law compels no mañ to do a vain and nugatory thing. |As the watch had been stolen and never regained, a demand |)f it would have been an act of folly. t It did not appear fthat any sum for repairs was due; and if there had been, it would have been subject to the same law as the watch, being payable or not as the watchmaker was guilty or not- of the want of ordinary diligence.

¶4Reversed and remanded.

The other judges concur.