Hubbard v. Ferry
Hubbard v. Ferry
Opinion of the Court
It is in our view unnecessary to discuss the propriety of the reformation of the bill of sale. We deem that action unnecessary and therefore immaterial. It would be doing great violence to the ordinary use of terms to consider a mere formal transfer of “stock, fixtures, and accounts” in a going retail business to include an unknown and an unsuspected liability of an embezzler of either the property or the moneys of the concern, and there is nothing amongst the surrounding circumstances to warrant extending the natural construction of the words of the instrument to such an extent. Whether the amount recovered from Jackson be considered as reimbursement, as damages, or as a price of immunity from prosecution, we are satisfied no interest therein was conveyed by this so-called bill of sale from plaintiff to defendant.
The correctness of the court’s conclusion of fact from the evidence that this settlement covered assumed peculation and embezzlement during both the period of the partnership, when plaintiff would have had an interest in the property embezzled, and the succeeding period, when defendant was alone the sufferer, depends on the view taken of many and various items of evidence, on the resolution of many ambiguous and-conflicting statements, and on the inferences to be drawn therefrom. This court does not sit to consider such questions originally. Even if we were satisfied that we should have reached a different conclusion from that of the trial court,
One contention of the appellant should perhaps receive special attention. That is, that there was absolutely no evidence that J ackson was guilty of any embezzlement or misappropriation during the term of the partnership; that the only evidence offered on this subject was Jackson’s admission made to plaintiff and defendant prior to the settlement or compromise, and that such hearsay declarations of a third party are not evidence. Conceding, arguendo, that such admissions are not evidence of the fact of embezzlement, yet they constitute one of the surrounding circumstances under which defendant insisted upon the payment of a sum of money and under which Jackson yielded to such insistence and paid the sum which defendant in fact received. They, therefore, being such a circumstance, tend to justify the inference of the trial com’t, embodied in the finding, that the settlement was made on the basis of uncertain embezzlements extending
By the Court. — Judgment affirmed.
Reference
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- Partnership: Transfer of interest in “stock, fixtures, and, accounts'’ . does not include liability of embezzler: Apportionment of sum recovered: Evidence: Burden of proof: Hearsay. 1. A bill of sale by which one partner transferred to the other all his interest in the “stock, fixtures,- and accounts” of a going retail business did not cover the liability, then unknown- and unsuspected, of an employee to the firm for property or moneys embezzled, or convey any interest in the amount afterwards collected upon a settlement with such employee, whether that amount be considered as reimbursement, as damages, or as a price of immunity from prosecution. 2. The vendee in the bill of sale having been the active manager of the business, and having continued it after such sale, and having received the amount collected from the embezzler in adjustment of a liability in part to the firm and in part to himself on account of embezzlements extending through a period both before and after the dissolution, the burden was primarily ■» upon him, in an action for an accounting, to show what part belonged to himself as distinguished from that which belonged to the firm. 3. An apportionment of the amount collected in such case equally over the whole period of the embezzler’s employment, both by the firm and by the partner' continuing the business, is held to be sustained by the evidence. 4. Admissions by the embezzler to both parties, prior to the settlement, that the embezzlements had extended over the whole period of his employment, even if not competent evidence of the fact of embezzlements during the term of the partnership, are evidence tending to show that the settlement was made on the basis of embezzlements extending through that time, and that the amount collected belonged in part to the firm.