Jones v. Nellis

Citations

• 41 Ill. 482

Syllabus

<p>1. Title to stolen property, in the hands of an innocent purchaser. A purchaser of a chattel can acquire no better title than the vendor had.</p> <p>3. Same — exceptions as to negotiable paper, etc. But, as an exception to that rule, by the common law, the Iona fide holder of money or negotiable paper, transferable by mere delivery and not overdue, who has taken it in the usual course of business, and for a valuable consideration, acquires a perfect title.</p> <p>3. So it is held, where a seven-thirty government bond had been stolen, and bought in the usual course of trade by a party who had no knowledge that it had been stolen, such purchaser acquired a perfect title to the bond, even as against the former owner from whom it had been stolen.</p> <p>4. Effect of the sixty-second and sixty-fourth sections of owr Criminal Code, upon that rule. Those sections of the Criminal Code, the former defining what larceny is, and the latter declaring that no purchaser of “property” which has been obtained by larceny, whatever his good faith in that regard, shall acquire title as against the owner, do not affect the common law rule as above laid down, in reference to negotiable paper, as the term “property” is used in the latter section in such a restricted sense as not to embrace either money, or bonds, bills and notes.</p>