People v. Wiman

• Decision Date: 19 December 1895
• Citation: 148 N.Y. 29,42 N.E. 408
• Parties: PEOPLE v. WIMAN.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

148 N.Y. 29

42 N.E. 408

PEOPLE

v.WIMAN.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Dec. 19, 1895.

Appeal from supreme court, general term, First department.

Erastus Wiman was convicted of forgery, and from a judgment of the general term (32 N. Y. Supp. 1037) reversing the conviction the state appeals. Affirmed.

For opinion on application for reasonable doubt, see 29 N. Y. Supp. 1034.

John D. Lindsay, for the State.

Benjamin F. Tracy, for respondent.

PER CURIAM.

It appears that Robert G. Dun, Arthur J. King, Robert D. Douglass, and the defendant, Erastus Wiman, were associated together in business, carrying on mercantile agencies under the names of R. G. Dun & Co., and Dun, Wiman & Co., in various cities of the United States and Canada. Wiman was the principal business manager, and had the power to sign the company's name to checks that were necessary to be drawn in the conduct of the business. On the 6th day of February, 1893, the company was owing one E. W. Bullinger the sum of about $15,000, and on that day the defendant directed a clerk in the company's office to draw a check to the order of Bullinger for $5,000, upon the Chemical National Bank, to be paid to Bullinger on account of the money owing to him. A check was accordingly filled out by the clerk, and that amount charged to the account of Bullinger on the books of the company. The defendant took the check, signed the company's name thereto, and on the same day, without the knowledge or consent of Bullinger, indorsed Bullinger's name on the back of the check, and then, after indorsing his own name thereon, deposited it to his own credit in the Central National Bank. The check was subsequently presented to the Chemical National Bank, and was paid, and a few days thereafter it was brought to the attention of the defendant's associates in the business. It further appears that at this time the defendant had overdrawn his account with the company in an amount upwards of $150,000, and that his associates had forbidden him to draw more from the business on his own account, except a stipulated sum, agreed upon, per month, until the amount of the overdraft should be restored or made good. The defendant was subsequently accused of the crime of forgery in the second degree by an indictment charging him with having feloniously forged on the back of the check the indorsement of E. W. Bullinger, with intent to defraud, and in another count he was charged with uttering this same. Upon the trial the court withdrew from the jury all question with reference to the intent to defraud Bullinger or the Chemical National Bank, and submitted only the question of the intent to defraud R. G. Dun & Co. The claim is made that the transaction set forth does not constitute the crime of forgery. Upon this question our minds are not in accord, and inasmuch as other facts may appear in the event that we should again be called upon to review this case, we have not thought it advisable to enter upon a discussion of the question at this time.

During the summing up of the defendant...