Meagher v. People's & Tower Grove Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 18 December 1883
• Citation: 14 Mo.App. 499
• Parties: ANTHONY MEAGHER, Respondent, v. PEOPLE'S AND TOWER GROVE RAILWAY COMPANY, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

14 Mo.App. 499

ANTHONY MEAGHER, Respondent,

v.PEOPLE'S AND TOWER GROVE RAILWAY COMPANY, Appellant.

St. Louis Court of Appeals, Missouri.

Dec. 18, 1883.

APPEAL from the St. Louis Circuit Court, THAYER, J.

Affirmed.

GIVEN CAMPBELL, for the appellant.

MCKEIGHAN & JONES, with E. J. O'BRIEN, for the respondentTHOMPSON, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

This case was tried in the circuit court at the same time with the case of Carroll v. The People's and Tower Grove Railway Company (14 Mo.App. 490), before the same judge and the same jury, and the plaintiff had a verdict and judgment for the amount claimed. The facts which appeared upon the trial of this case were substantially the same as those which appeared with reference to the other case, with the exception that the testimony of this plaintiff brings out the facts, if possible, more clearly in favor of the ground on which his counsel have based his right to recover; while the testimony of Mr. Ryder, for the defendant, presents the grounds of the defence, if possible, in a clearer light than in the former case. It is scarcely necessary to say that it must be borne in mind that, in dealing with conflicting evidence in a case at law after verdict, an appellate court is concerned, not with the weight of evidence, but with the question whether there was substantial evidence to support the verdict. Here, as in the former case, the evidence undoubtedly conduces to show that the president of the defendant corporation knew nothing of the practice of Ryder, its secretary and treasurer, to allow such of its employés as desired to do so, to leave a portion of their money “in,” or “in the office,” or “on the book,” which practice, the evidence shows, he had kept up for twenty-three years. The evidence also shows, without any room for question, so far as it was not excluded by the court, that Ryder retained this money for his own use, and not for the use of the company. But there is no substantial evidence in this record tending to show that this plaintiff knew, or that Ryder ever informed him or intimated to him, that he kept this money in any other capacity than as the treasurer of the company. The marks that Ryder was in the habit of making on the pay-roll at the time when the plaintiff would sign it on pay-day, “$20 in,” “$15 in,” or “$10 in,' as the case might be, which marks were made in the presence of the plaintiff, had the effect, undoubtedly, of indicating to the mind of the plaintiff the contrary, and...