Robertson v. Coleman

• Citation: 141 Mass. 231,4 N.E. 619
• Parties: ROBERTSON v. COLEMAN and others.
• Decision Date: 26 February 1886
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

141 Mass. 231

4 N.E. 619

ROBERTSON v. COLEMAN and others.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.

February 26, 1886

This was an action of contract to recover the amount of a bank-check for $91.08, signed by the defendants, dated March 31, 1883, and payable to the order of Charles Barney. The following facts appeared at the trial: On the twenty-seventh day of March, 1883, a young man went to the Metropolitan Hotel, in Boston, of which the plaintiff was the proprietor and registered his name as Charles Barney. On that or the next day he took to the place of business of the defendants who sold property as auctioneers, a team, of which he represented himself to be the owner, and which he desired them to sell on his account. He gave his name there as Charles Barney. In reply to an inquiry regarding him, they received a message by telegraph that Charles Barney, of Swanzey, was a responsible and reliable man. Believing him to be Charles Barney, of Swanzey, they sold the team for him and three days afterwards gave him, in payment of the money received, the check declared on. On the thirty-first day of the same March, he left the plaintiff's hotel, where he had been staying in the mean time under the name of Charles Barney, and before going he gave the check to the plaintiff in payment of his board bill of $16.75, and received the balance of its amount in cash from the plaintiff. At the same time he indorsed it in blank with the name of Charles Barney. It turned out that Charles Barney was not his true name, and there was no evidence that he had ever gone by that name before registering at the plaintiff's hotel. The defendants discovered that he had stolen the team which he left with them, and, by their order, the bank upon which the check was drawn, refused to pay it. It was in evidence that there was a person in existence by the name of Charles Barney, of Swanzey. It appeared that the plaintiff made no further inquiry as to the identity of the payee than for information which was founded upon the representations of his said lodger. Upon these facts the court, against the defendants' objection, and subject to their exception instructed the jury as follows:

"If the person who took the team to the defendants' place of business left it there under the name of Charles Barney, and the defendants in receiving it dealt with him as Charles Barney, and sold the team for him, and three days afterwards gave him the check in the belief that he was Charles Barney, of Swanzey, and was the owner of the team and said person had in the mean time been boarding at the plaintiff's hotel under that name, and had gone by that name while at said hotel, the plaintiff, upon the receipt from him of said check in good fath, for a...