Schmidt v. State

• Decision Date: 25 June 1919
• Citation: 173 N.W. 638,169 Wis. 575
• Parties: SCHMIDT v. STATE.
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

169 Wis. 575

173 N.W. 638

SCHMIDT

v.STATE.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

June 25, 1919.

Error to Municipal Court of Milwaukee County; A. C. Backus, Judge.

Emil O. Schmidt was convicted of forgery, and he brings error. Affirmed.

The plaintiff in error, hereinafter called the defendant, having waived a jury trial, was convicted in the municipal court of Milwaukee county of forgery of a bank check for $6, and brings his writ of error to reverse the judgment.

The actual facts were not greatly in dispute, but rather the inferences of fact to be deduced therefrom. The defendant was engaged in the piano and phonograph business in Milwaukee in 1917 and the early part of 1918, and the complaining witness, Junkerman, whose name is alleged to have been forged to the bank check in question, was employed by the defendant as a salesman. In the latter part of 1918, the defendant became financially involved, and in December, 1917, a bank account was opened at the First National Bank in the name of Junkerman, in which all the amounts received in the defendant's business were deposited and out of which moneys to pay the bills of the business were drawn by check signed by Junkerman. Defendant testifies that this was done at his request, because he had had business reverses and was afraid of his creditors. Junkerman, on the other hand, claims that he opened this account in his own name because the defendant was gone for a week and he had no place to put the money coming in. While this account was thus kept, Junkerman loaned the defendant $300 and put the money into this account. Checks on this account for disbursements in the defendant's business were drawn exclusively by Junkerman. This account was closed February 26, 1918, and another account opened in Junkerman's name in the East Side Bank, The defendant claims that this latter account was but a continuation of the First National Bank account and was really his own account kept in Junkerman's name. Junkerman, on the other hand, claims that, while the moneys deposited in this account were moneys coming in from the business, they were turned over to him by Mr. Schmidt to apply on the debt which he (Schmidt) owed Junkerman, and became his money; also that, while he (Junkerman) drew some checks on that account to pay bills against Schmidt, they were simply advances made to Schmidt at his request out of his (Junkerman's) own money. On May 25, 1917, Schmidt drew the $6 check in question on the East Side Bank, signed “W. C. Junkerman,” payable to his own order, and indorsed it to one Oberle to pay a debt of his own. He issued four or five other checks of the same kind at about the same time. Payment of them was refused at the bank, and, when Junkerman found out that they had been issued a few days later and remonstrated with Schmidt, he (Schmidt) said: “If you feel that way about it, I will make good the checks.” Schmidt afterwards paid the checks. No attempt was made to imitate Junkerman's signature in writing the checks....