Case ID: us-ct-cl_18/html/0349-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Scofield, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

THE UNCAS NATIONAL BANK v. THE UNITED STATES.
    No. 11954
    April 2, 1883.
    The claimant sues to recover the value of a package alleged to contain $2,000 in mutilated national hank notes forwarded and delivered to the Treasurer of the United States, and never accounted for to the claimant.
    Held :
    I.The burden of proof is on the claimant to prove not only the receipt by the Treasurer of the United States of the package alleged to contain notes sent for redemption, but also the contents of the package so received at the Treasury Department.
    II.When the conflicting evidence is as strong on one side as on the'other, the parties must be left in statu quo.
    
    III.The claimant, on the evidence stated, fails to satisfy the court that the alleged package contained notes when it reached the Treasury at Washington.
    Tbe claimant bank sues to recover $2,000, which it alleged was sent by its cashier to the United States Treasurer at .Washington, and never accounted for.
    It was proved that the cashier of the bank delivered a package-alleged to contain $2,000 in mutilated national-bank notes to Adams Express Company, at Norwich, Conn., to be forwarded to the United States Treasurer at Washington for redemption.
    It was also proved that the same, or a package purporting to be the same, was delivered by Adams Express Company to the Treasurer.
    After the package had been some days in the Treasury it was found to contain nothing but pieces of newspaper and other worthless paper.
    The claimant’s cashier and teller testified that the package contained notes when it left Norwich, and the defendant’s Treasury officials, in whose custody it was after its arrival in Washington, testified that it contained nothing but old paper when they examined it.
    The officers of the express company testified that the package was delivered in the same condition as received.
    
      There was uo evidence whatever as to when, how, or where-the old paper was substituted for bank notes, if the latter were in the package when it left Norwich.
    The court was not satisfied upon the conflicting evidence, and under all the circumstances of the case, that the package did contain notes when it was delivered at the Treasury Department; and, holding that the burden of proof was upon the claimant, the petition was dismissed.
    The case involving less than $3,000, and there being no right of appeal on the part of the claimant, the court did not make a finding of facts, but the facts are concisely stated in the opinion.
    
      Mr. Samuel Shellabarger and Mr. I. G. Kimball for the claimant.
    
      Mr. John S. Blair (with whom was Mr. Thomas Simons, Assistant Attorney-General) for the defendants.
   OPINION.-

Scofield, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court:

A package, said to contain $2,000 in bank bills, and directed, to the Treasurer of the United States, was deposited by the claimant at Norwich, Conn., with Adams Express Company for transmission. The express company carried it safely to-Washington and delivered it, with unbroken seals, to the Treasury officers.

’ It is clearly and satisfactorily proven, by the evidence of claimant’s cashier and teller, that the package contained $2,000 in bank bills.

On the part of the defendants, the evidence is equally clear and satisfactory that upon its arrival at the Treasury the package contained no bank bills whatever, but, instead, pieces of newspapers carefully folded up to simulate bills.'

There are three allegations here about equally well proven.

1. The package contained bills when it started.

2. It was not tampered with on the way.

3. It contained newspapers when it arrived.

We are not called upon to say which one of these allegations is false. The claimant has the affirmative of the issue and must make out a case. When the evidence is as strong on one side as on the other, the parties mu'st be left in statu quo.

But another fact appears in the case, which in justice to all concerned should be stated. Some years subsequent to this transaction and pending this suit, the cashier was found to have been dishonest in the management of the bank. The package was sent in 1874, this suit begun in 1878, and the testimony of the cashier and teller taken in January and May, 1879. After the case had progressed thus far, an examination of the bank was made in November, 1879, by the United States examiner. It was found by this examination that the cashier, during a period of some ten years, had been in the habit of converting small amounts of the bank’s funds to his private use. The concealment of these deficiencies had become a study and to this end he had devised various methods. So far, this statement is sustained by the evidence. Beyond this, all is conjecture. It is not at all improbable that the Treasury circular suggested a new mode of concealment. Could he not send off a package of papers disguised as bank bills? Such a package must pass through many hands on its way and be handled by many clerks after its arrival. It would be disputed, but who could tell where the fraud originated ? But, to be successful, he must have an honest and unimpeachable witness that bank bills and not newspapers were deposited in the express office. Following this line of conjecture, we may suppose he prepared, in advance and at his leisure, a package of papers corresponding in size and shape to $2,000 in bills, put with them his letter to the Treasurer, wrapped them up in the paper of the bank, doubled over and sealed down the ends, all in a manner that must necessarily be imitated by the teller in putting up a package of bills. The false package prepared, he handed to the unsuspecting teller the $2,000 to be counted and wrapped up. The cashier testifies that while the teller was thus engaged, he stood by and gave particular directions. .“My attention,” says he, “ was particularly given to his manipulations of this package.” The teller must have known how to wrap up a package of bills, and this extraordinary supervision on the part of the cashier must have had some purpose besides general instructions ‘in a duty so simple. It was important to the success of his scheme that the teller’s package of bills should perfectly agree in external appearance with the package of papers already prepared by himself. It required only a second’s diversion of the teller’s attention, after his package was complete, to substitute the one for the other. Without suspecting the fraud, the teller superscribed the package. before him and took it to the express office.

The conjecture may or may not be true. If true, it not only unravels the mystery but exonerates every person that might, by possibility, be suspected, except the cashier, whose character is already impeached.

The claimant’s petition is dismissed.