State v. Paint Rock Coal & Coke Co.

• Decision Date: 19 November 1892
• Citation: 20 S.W. 499
• Parties: STATE v. PAINT ROCK COAL & COKE CO.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

Page 499

20 S.W. 499

STATE v. PAINT ROCK COAL & COKE CO.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

November 19, 1892.

Appeal from circuit court, Scott county; S. A. ROGERS, Judge.

The Paint Rock Coal & Coke Company was indicted for refusing to cash a certain check of its own presented within 30 days after being issued. Defendant's motion to quash the indictment was sustained. The state appeals. Affirmed.

G. W. Pickle, Atty. Gen., for the State. Washburn & Templeton, for appellee.

HENDERSON, Special Judge.

At the July term, 1891, the grand jurors for Scott county returned an indictment against the Paint Rock Coal & Coke Company consisting of two counts, in substance as follows: (1) That the said defendant refused "to cash a certain check of its own that was presented it within thirty days of its date of issuance." (2) That the said defendant "did unlawfully refuse to redeem, in lawful currency, a certain check of its own, which said Paint Rock Coal & Coke Company had issued." To this indictment the defendant interposed a motion to quash, and set forth the following grounds: "(1) Because no criminal offense is alleged in the indictment. (2) Because the act of 1887, under which this indictment was drawn, is unconstitutional, in that it impairs the obligation of the contract, and attempts to imprison the defendant for refusing to pay a debt." On the hearing of the question thus presented, his honor, the circuit judge, sustained said motion, and quashed said indictment. The state appeals to this court.

Passing over the objection to the form of the indictment, which contains no identification or description of the check complained of, the law of the case is invoked in the second ground of the motion to quash. The act of March 29, 1887, enacts that from and after the passage of that act it would be unlawful for any person or persons, firms or corporations or companies, to refuse to cash any checks or scrip of their own that may be presented them within 30 days of its date of issuance, and that any such person who should refuse to redeem in lawful currency any such checks or scrip would be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction should be fined not less than $10 nor more than $25 for each offense, in other words, that when any person, who owed a debt which was evidenced by check or scrip issued by him, did not cash the same within 30 days of its issuance, he would be guilty of a misdemeanor, and fined accordingly, which judgment, of course, under the general...