Masterson v. Union Bank & Trust Co.

Citations

• 86 Wash. 560
• 150 P. 1126
• 1915 Wash. LEXIS 1219

Syllabus

<p>Payment • — ■ Presumption — Remittance by Mail — Ownership. Where a bank, upon request, delivered money in the mails by registered letter, addressed to the consignee, in the absence of any agreement or custom to that effect, there is no presumption that the carrier is the consignee’s agent, but the presumption is that the money belongs to the sender until actually delivered to the consignee; the transaction being more in the nature of a payment than a consignment of goods and the creditor having the right to payment in person.</p> <p>Replevin — Ownership op Property- — Defenses—Title in Third Person — Estoppel. Where a bank, upon request, delivered money in the mails by registered letter, addressed to the consignee, and it was stolen in transit and the bank sued to recover it, the defense of ownership by the consignee is unavailable, where the consignee had appeared as a witness on behalf of the bank and estopped himself from claiming title to the money.</p> <p>Replevin — Ownership—Evidence — Sufficiency. Evidence that $2,500 was stolen from a registered mail package, intrusted to a Japanese, who made various purchases and was about to depart for Japan under suspicious circumstances, held sufficient to establish, in an action of replevin, that he stole the package, where his explanation of the possession of so much money was improbable.</p> <p>Same. In an action of replevin, evidence that the purchaser of articles stole, from the United States mails, money of certain denominations a few days before the purchases, and paid therefor with money of the same denominations, sufficiently establishes that the articles were purchased with the stolen-money, in the absence of a showing that he had other money of like denominations.</p> <p>Same — Ownership—Bona Pide Purchaser — Knowledge of Theft. An attorney, securing from his client, charged with the theft of money, a bill of sale of articles recently purchased, cannot claim that he had no knowledge that the articles were