Bucher v. Commonwealth
| Decision Date | 01 October 1883 |
| Citation | 103 Pa. 528 |
| Parties | Bucher <I>versus</I> The Commonwealth. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Before MERCUR, C. J., GORDON, PAXSON, TRUNKEY and GREEN, JJ. STERRETT and CLARK, JJ., absent
ERROR to the Court of Quarter Sessions of Cumberland county: Of January Term 1883, No. 144.
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W. F. Sadler and Stuart & Stuart, for the plaintiff in error.—A warehouseman must be a bailee. A warehouseman is a person who receives goods and merchandise for hire: Bouvier Law Dict. "A person who makes it his business to receive merchandise in quantities, and keep it in store for the owner until wanted, at a reasonable compensation:" Abbott's Law Dict. Edwards calls warehousemen "bailees who carry on a business of a public nature and receive goods generally from all persons indifferent for storage." In Pennsylvania any limitation that removes from a transaction any characteristic of a bailment in its strictest sense, translates such transaction from the category of a bailment to that of a sale or gift. Unless, therefore, the transaction between Bucher and Hettrick was strictly a bailment, there should have been no conviction. Where there is an option to purchase, the transaction is not a bailment but a sale, and carries with it loss by accident: Chase v. Washburn, 1 Ohio St. 244; Ewing v. French, 1 Blackford 353; Buswell v. Bicknell, 17 Me. 346; Holbrook v. Armstrong, 10 Me. 31. In some of the states the cases go still further. Thus, in Ives v. Hartley, 51 Ill. 520, it is said, that a receipt, given by a warehouseman in these terms: "Received of H. 134 bushels of wheat left in store, to take the market price when he sees fit to sell," imports a sale. So Lonergan v. Stewart, 55 Ill. 45. The evidence of prior dealings between the defendant and Hettrick should have been admitted: Lelar v. Brown, 3 Harris 215; Hursh v. North, 4 Wright 241.
S. Hepburn, Jr. (with him J. W. Wetzel, District Attorney), for the Commonwealth, defendant in error.—The offence charged is clearly defined by the statute and the meaning and intention of the party who commits it cannot relieve him: Gardner v. The People, 62 N. Y. 299; Halsted v. The State, 12 Vroom 552. But Bucher was in fact a warehouseman, as all men engaged in business, such as his, are warehousemen in the technical sense of the word. They take grain on store for a consideration, which well repays them for waiving the ordinary storage charges. By offering storage free to farmers, they draw into their warehouses grain long before it would otherwise come; and thus they secure the option to buy — the first chance, for which all active business men are willing to pay: and they advertise in the most effective way their "warehouses." Their places of business are never spoken of in the community except as "warehouses." Custom can no more alter the terms of a special contract than it can prevail against the positive commands of a statute.
No exception can be taken to the charge of the learned judge of the court below as a critical exposition of the Act of September 24th 1866 (P. L. 1866, 1363.) We have no doubt that he was strictly correct in saying that the whole object of the Act was to protect the transferee of what is technically known as warehouse receipts. This kind of paper, together with bills of lading and receipts for goods in transit, are, by this Act, made negotiable, hence for the protection of those persons to whom these kinds of securities are passed, it is made a penal offence for any "warehouseman, wharfinger, or other person" to issue any such vouchers for goods, wares, &c., unless he shall have actually received them into store. Neither is such person or persons permitted to sell or incumber, "ship or transfer, or in any manner remove beyond his control, any goods, wares, merchandise, petroleum, grain, flour, or other produce or commodity, for which a receipt shall have been given by him as aforesaid, whether received for storage, shipping, grinding, manufacturing or other purposes, without the return of such receipt." Nor is the learned judge less correct in his definition of the intent of the Act when he states, that since the object of the statute is to protect advances made on the faith of the fact that the goods described in the receipt are actually in store, as may be stated in that paper, and not for the protection of the depositor, it follows, that the consent of the person storing the goods to the shipping of them without a return of the receipt does not relieve the warehouseman. He further well says, that the depositor has no right to consent to a violation of the statute which was not made for his benefit, but for the security of the holder or transferee of the warehouse receipt; that the agreement of the bailor and bailee cannot so modify the Act as to make lawful the shipping of the property...
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