Sporsem v. First Nat. Bank
Decision Date | 26 February 1925 |
Docket Number | 18609. |
Citation | 133 Wash. 199,233 P. 641 |
Court | Washington Supreme Court |
Parties | SPORSEM v. FIRST NAT. BANK OF POULSBO. |
Department 2.
Appeal from Superior Court, Kitsap County; Frater, Judge.
Action by Ole Elias Olson Sporsem against the First National Bank of Poulsbo. From a judgment of dismissal, plaintiff appeals. Reversed and remanded, with directions.
Martin J. Lund, of Seattle, for appellant.
F. W Moore, of Bremerton, and Guy B Groff and William Hatch Davis both of Spokane, for respondent.
The plaintiff brought this action on behalf of himself and his assignors to recover for losses which had been sustained by reason of the burglarizing of the safe deposit boxes which the plaintiff and his assignors had leased from the defendant. The cause came on for trial before the court and a jury. At the conclusion of the plaintiff's evidence upon the motion of the defendant the court withdrew the case from the jury and entered a judgment of dismissal from which the plaintiff appeals.
The facts are these: The respondent is a corporation and engaged in the banking business at Poulsbo, a small town on the west side of Puget Sound in this state. In connection with its banking business it leases safe deposit boxes. For the purpose of attracting attention to its safe deposit facilities it published in the local paper an advertisement which contained the following
A number of the parties who had rented boxes, and whose claims were assigned to the appellant, testified that their attention was directed to the safe deposit facilities offered by the respondent by this advertisement. When a customer leased a box he was required to pay the annual fee of $3 and sign a little contract which was printed on the back of a card. This contract, after making certain recitals, provides that the bank, the respondent here, 'agrees to exercise the same diligence in the protection of the said box and its contents against loss by fire or burglary that it uses in the protection of its own property, but assumes no liability whatever for any loss or damage that may occur.'
The safe deposit boxes were kept in the vault in the bank, and when a customer desired his box an officer or employ$ae of the bank would enter the vault, get the box, and deliver it to him over the counter. There was a safe in the vault in which the bank kept its money, or part of it and at the time of the burglary the safe was not opened, and consequently, nothing in the safe was lost. Whether the safe deposit boxes were kept in steel compartments or chests which were locked the evidence does not make entirely clear.
As above stated, the action is to recover for the money and other valuables taken from the boxes by the burglary, and is predicated on the theory that the respondent was guilty of negligence. The degree of care which respondent was required to exercise over the boxes in order to prevent loss is a question of law for the court, and the question whether or not in a particular case there was exercised that degree of care required by the law is ordinarily a question of fact for the jury. The law requires that a bank which leases safe deposit boxes in connection with its banking business shall exercise that degree of care which an ordinarily prudent and careful man would exercise under like or similar circumstances with reference to his own property. In the case of Harland v. Pe Ell State Bank, 122 Wash. 289, 210 P. 681, it is said:
'The proper rule is, Did the act of the bank in leaving the value door unlocked constitute want of due care, such as a prudent man would take under similar circumstances of his own property, that caused or permitted, or contributed to cause or permit, the burglary?'
A number of errors have been assigned upon the ruling of the court in rejecting testimony, and these will be noticed. The appellant offered to prove that the day after the burglary the bank's president made a statement in the presence of the witness then on the stand to the effect that the respondent lost nothing through the burglary. This was objected to on the ground that the statement made by the bank's president was not in 'connection with the transaction of business.' The evidence should have been admitted. The statement was by the president of the bank who was in active charge of its affairs, and if he could not speak for it on a matter that was material to the inquiry on the day following the burglary it is difficult to see who could. Certainly in order for evidence of this kind to be used against the bank it was not necessary that its source be sought in a resolution of its board of trustees. This would be entirely impractical, and would place a corporation...
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