People v. Avilés
People v. Avilés
Opinion of the Court
delivered tlie opinion of the Court.
Tlie appellant was convicted of petit larceny in the Municipal Court of Bayamón, and likewise on • appeal in the district court. Her counsel filed eight assignments of error and
The evidence tended to show that the defendant was a servant in the house of José N. Quiñones. There is evidence that defendant was the latter’s mistress or concubine but the court was entitled to disbelieve it, in point of fact, paid no attention to it. While in the house of Quiño-nes, as a servant, she disposed of or took various articles such as sheets, towels, chickens and eggs of the alleged total value of $18.40. The principal defense was, supposing the taking to be true, that the relation of the defendant to Qui-ñones was such as to constitute her a servant under Section 450 of the Penal Code so that her acts would amount to an embezzlement and not a larceny.
That Section reads:
“See. 450. Every clerk, agent or servant of any person who fraudulently appropriates to his own use or secretes with a fraudulent intent to appropriate to his own use, any property of another which has come into his control or care by virtue of his employment as such clerk, agent, or servant, is guilty of embezzlement.’’
At the hearing, and even now we have some doubts whether the acts complained of, if true, might not have constituted either a larceny or an embezzlement. The two crimes, it would seem, are mutuady exclusive in some jurisdictions. Of this more anon.
It is true that Quiñones, on the witness-stand, clearly admitted that the defendant had charge of the property in question, but this kind of care or custody of the servant, we think, does not fall within the terms of the statute. In our opinion, that statute refers to some confidential relation especially imposed upon a person or a servant as distinct from the ordinary traditional duties of a domestic servant. Take an extreme case of a master saying to his servant: “Bring me my watch out of the top drawer of my bureau,” and the servant walks out of the house with the watch and sells it. In that case, we think, the larceny would be clear. No special confidential relation was created. It seems to us that the relation the servant has with all the things in the house is casual and does not partake of the confidential relation or agency that the statute contemplates. The word “servant” in the statute we should say is employed in the most general use of the term “master and servant,” but a domestic servant is not necessarily included, unless he is required to do something out of the ordinary duties as such domestic servant.
We have some idea, but it is unnecessary to decide the question definitely, that in Puerto Rico where both larceny and embezzlement are purely statutory marginal cases might be prosecuted as either crime at the election of the district attorney. See 9 R.C.L. 1267, note 6.
Error was also assigned on the ground that the court should not have excluded certain statements made by the defendant on reaching the house of another person, the said statements not falling within or being capable of falling within any exception to the hearsay rule like an outcry after a rape.
The majority of the court holds that the fine should be reduced, but the writer finds no reason for intervening in the discretion of the court.
The judgment appealed from should be modified, reducing the penalty to a fine of five dollars, and in default thereof to a day in jail for each dollar left unpaid, and, as modified, affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.