Ear-Mark

A mark put upon a thing for the purpose of distinction. Money in a bag tied and labelled is said to have an earmark. 3 Maule & S. 575. Also used in equity in respect of property or a fund in the hands of a third party, which is capable of identification as belonging to the claimant out of possession. The doctrine that money has no ear-mark is no longer law. Property entrusted to a person in a fiduciary capacity may be followed as long as it may be traced, and where a person holding money as trustee or in a fiduciary character mixed it with his own and draws out of the mixed fund for his own purposes, the court presumes that his own drawings are to come out of his own money; 13 Ch. D. 696. And see note to this case citing leading English cases in Brett's Lead. Cas. Mod. Eq. 179. Where police on^cers, in arresting bank burglars, took the stolen money from them and claimed to hold it for an assignee of the burglars (their attorney for his services) and for a reward offered, it was held that an indemnity company which had indemnified the bank could recover the specific money from the police officers; ^Etna Indemnity Co. v. Malone, 89 Neb. 260, 131 N. W. 200.

A mark put upon a thing to distinguish it from another, — originally a mark put upon the ear, as a mode of distinguishing animails.