State v. Jenkins
| Decision Date | 31 January 1878 |
| Citation | 78 N.C. 478 |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE v. HIRAM JENKINS. |
INDICTMENT for Larceny, tried at Fall Term, 1877, of BURKE Superior Court, before Schenck, J.
The defendant was charged with stealing meat, and the property was laid in W. B. McDowell, the depot-agent, at Morganton, of the W. N. C. R. R. Co. After the testimony was closed, the defendant's counsel asked the Court to charge the jury that the indictment could not be sustained, because the ownership of the property was in the Railroad, and not in the agent. This was declined, and the defendant excepted. Verdict of Guilty. Judgment. Appeal by defendant.
Attorney General, for the State .
Messrs. A. C. Avery and G. N. Folk, for the defendant : The goods of a corporation must be described as their goods by their corporate name; and this is so in every case, unless the corporation has parted with the possession, as distinguished from the custody and control of its servants. Roscoe, 586. The distinction is between a bailee having special property and possession, and a mere servant having a mere custody and control.
The only question which it is necessary to consider is, whether the property in the goods stolen is properly laid in the indictment.
It is settled by all text writers, and it is familiar learning, that the property must be laid to be either in him who has the general property or in him who has a special property. It must at all events be laid to be in some one who has a property of some kind in the article stolen. It is not sufficient to charge it to be the property of one who is a mere servant, although he may have had the actual possession at the time of the larceny; because having no property, his possession is the possession of his master. These are the only general principles that can be laid down; and any given case must be governed by them.
In this case the meat stolen belonged to the Railroad, and was in its possession in its depot-house, for the purpose of feeding its hands. The property is not laid to be in the Railroad, but in its depot-agent, who had nothing to do with it and did nothing with it except to give it out to the Railroad hands to eat. His testimony was that he was “the agent at the depot and had possession and control for them, as their bailee of the bacon alleged to have been stolen by defendant; that on Friday evening he issued rations of bacon to the Railroad hands and in the hogshead where the bacon was, he...
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State v. Campbell
...Church, the true owner of the property, does not cure the fatal variance. In State v. Greene , our Supreme Court quoted State v. Jenkins , 78 N.C. 478, 479-80 (1878), in support of the rule that an employee in possession of property on behalf of the employer does not have a sufficient owner......
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State v. Miller, 272--B
...263 N.C. 283, 139 S.E.2d 558; State v. Law, 227 N.C. 103, 40 S.E.2d 699; same case, State v. Law, 228 N.C. 443, 45 S.E.2d 374; State v. Jenkins, 78 N.C. 478. In the instant case, the motions for judgment of compulsory nonsuit, made at the close of all the evidence, as to the first count in ......
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State v. Stinson, 722
...variance results, in larceny cases, where title to the property is laid in one person and the proof shows it to be in another. State v. Jenkins, 78 N.C. 478. 'In all cases the charge must be proved as laid'. State v. Bell, * * * * * * 'The present conviction will be set aside, the demurrer ......
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State v. Campbell
...Church, the true owner of the property, does not cure the fatal variance. In State v. Greene, our Supreme Court quoted State v. Jenkins, 78 N.C. 478, 479–80 (1878), in support of the rule that an employee in possession of property on behalf of the employer does not have a sufficient ownersh......