Opinion ID: 1395016
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: lynchburg i

Text: In the second trial, Mosteller was charged in two counts with grand larceny from the Commonwealth and its agency, the Lynchburg Training School and Hospital. The charges related to alleged misrepresentations as to installation charges and samples in the sale of furniture for the psychiatric building. The evidence is that State personnel submitted a requisition for furniture to be installed by State employees, and so informed Mosteller. When the invitation for bids was issued, however, it called for installation to be performed by the vendor, and the successful bidder factored in a charge for this service. This change apparently was not made known to the personnel at the institution, and State workers installed the furniture. The trial court, concluding that in view of the Commonwealth's own contract providing for installation by the vendor and payment therefor, the Commonwealth had failed to carry its burden of showing that Mosteller never intended for the vendor to install. Therefore, the court dismissed this count. The invitation to bid also contained the provision that the successful bidder may be required to furnish samples. In preparing its successful bid, Contract Interiors, Inc., also referred to as Contract Services, a subsidiary of General Medical Corporation, obtained information from Mosteller as to samples and included in its bid a charge in the amount specified by Mosteller for abandoned samples used to sell the furniture. Thomas Schmidt, an executive of the vendor, testified for the Commonwealth. When asked on cross-examination by Mosteller's counsel whether he knew of the use of samples far in advance of the bidding process in order to persuade potential purchasers to buy a particular brand of furniture, Schmidt replied in the affirmative. He testified in reference to the contractual provision for samples that he would have included a charge for this on the basis that there were samples being furnished, or having been furnished. A note from the desk of Dave Mosteller, introduced in evidence, showed a figure of $5,800 for samples used in this transaction. An invoice to the vendor specified $3,000 for abandoned samples used to sell Psychiatric building furniture at Lynchburg Training School & Hospital. The invoice directed that the check be made payable to Dave Mosteller  Sample Acct., and a check in this amount was paid as specified. Nevertheless, the record shows that no samples were used to promote this sale and no samples were ever furnished the hospital or abandoned there. We conclude that the evidence is sufficient to support the trial court's conviction of Mosteller under this count. A reasonable construction of the contract provision here, as in the Danville case, is that a successful vendor might be required to leave samples previously used in promoting the sale and that he would properly include in his bid the value of such abandoned samples. In this case, however, there were no samples. The trial court could reasonably conclude that Mosteller misrepresented to Contract Services that he had left samples worth $5,800 at the institution in promoting the sale, that the vendor, because of this misrepresentation, included this figure in its bid, and that the Commonwealth paid $3,000 for nonexistent samples. Mosteller's conviction under this count, therefore, will be affirmed.