Baugh v. Williams' Adm'r

• Decision Date: 28 April 1936
• Citation: 94 S.W.2d 330,264 Ky. 167
• Parties: BAUGH et al. v. WILLIAMS' ADM'R.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

94 S.W.2d 330

264 Ky. 167

BAUGH et al. v. WILLIAMS' ADM'R.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky

April 28, 1936

Rehearing Denied June 9, 1936.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Pulaski County.

Action by C. C. Williams' administrator against Virgil Baugh and Susie Baugh and another. From an adverse judgment, defendants appeal.

Affirmed.

H. C Kennedy, of Somerset, and J. S. Owsley, of Stanford, for appellants.

R. C Tartar, of Somerset, and C. C. Bagby, of Danville, for appellee.

RICHARDSON Justice.

C. C Williams was a World War veteran. When he was discharged from the army he had tuberculosis and was unable to work. From 1918, he was paid by the United States government compensation of $80 a month for a short time, when it was increased to $100, and paid until his death. He lived frugally and saved his money. The last years of his life were spent in the Veterans' Administration Hospital at Atwood near Dawson Springs, Ky. At the time he entered it, and during his confinement therein, he owned a traveling bag which he kept at the hospital. During the period of his confinement there was located, and engaged in business, at Dawson Springs, the Commercial Bank of Dawson of which Charles K. Reed was assistant cashier. He acted in this capacity from 1922 to and including 1926. Williams, on June 5, 1922, opened an account with the Commercial Bank of Dawson and closed it July 6, 1922. On July 5, 1926, he reopened it by depositing to his credit $1,910.10. Subsequently, he deposited other sums until his account aggregated $2,112.71, which he withdrew on July 17, 1926, by giving and cashing a check to himself for this amount. At the time he withdrew this sum he was paid in gold certificates. At the time he withdrew it, his traveling bag was in his room at the hospital, where it remained until his death, which occurred suddenly in September, 1926. After his death those in charge of the hospital took possession of his traveling bag. They opened it and removed therefrom its contents and, after making an inventory, replaced the same and later sent it to his home in Pulaski county. In 1930, his traveling bag was sold and delivered by Vernice Williams, a brother, to Virgil Baugh, who took possession of and used it. Until he sold it to Baugh, it was in his custody. In the early part of the year 1935, Susie Baugh, the wife of Virgil, appeared at the First State Bank of Eubank, Ky. with $1,040 in gold certificates. C. L. Gooch at the time was cashier of the bank. She requested an exchange of them for ordinary silver certificates for the same amount. At that time the federal government had imposed upon the owners of gold certificates the duty to surrender them. For this reason, Gooch first declined to receive them. Whereupon, she explained to him how she had obtained possession of them, stating that she was at home, cleaning a traveling bag of her husband, when she felt something bulky between the lining and the bottom. She examined it and discovered a hole in the lining in the bottom, covered with adhesive tape; she pulled it loose, put her finger in the hole, and got out $2,140. The certificates were twenties and fifties. They were old and of the large type. She also stated to Gooch that her husband had bought the traveling bag of Vernice Williams; "it was Chris Williams' (the decedent's) grip and she supposed that Chris had put the money in there." L. H. Hendricks was present at the time Mrs. Baugh presented the $1,040 to Gooch and heard the conversation between them. To Kinnaird Wesley, Virgil Baugh stated that his wife had found the money in a traveling bag which Vernice Williams had sold to him (Baugh); also, that it had belonged to Chris Williams and "Chris or somebody had split the bottom lining of it and put the money in the lining and pasted tape or something over it and that she had found over $2,000.00." He exhibited to Wesley a roll of bills and stated the amount he had received of his wife. About the same time he bought a farm in Lincoln county. To Ernest Morgan and James Rodgers he made substantially the same statements.

On these facts the administrator of Williams' estate sought in this action to recover of the First State Bank of Eubank Ky. and Virgil and Susie Baugh, the $2,040, alleging that the decedent as the owner thereof had secreted it in the lining of his traveling bag which had been sold and delivered to Virgil Baugh, and that he and his wife had found the money and appropriated $1,040 thereof to their own use by depositing the same in the First State Bank of Eubank. He charged that they were insolvent and the bank was about to pay this sum over to them. He sought an injunction restraining the bank from doing so, and a decree that the Williams' estate was the owner of, and entitled to, the possession of this sum or "the equivalent in some other currency or moneys on deposit in the bank," and that Virgil and Susie Baugh be adjudged no right or title thereto. He asked for a personal judgment against the bank for $1,040. Later, he filed an amended petition adopting the allegations...