Court Opinion

ID: 9566597
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:41:13.049714+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:38:38.288874
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Justice.
I concur but wish to volunteer other and possibly different reasons for the result. Apparently defendants’ principal objections to plaintiff’s pleading and his claim to the money are: 1) that plaintiff alleged no ownership, and that 2) anyway, there is a conclusive presumption of ownership of the bail money by the defendant, none other, regardless of who deposited the money.
As to 1) : Plaintiff alleged he was “entitled” to the money. Such term connotes ownership or an assertable right1 which, in my opinion satisfies the rules as to plead*162ing ownership in cases of money had and received.2
As to 2): There is respectable authority for defendant’s second contention.3 Other respectable authority,4 perhaps the majority insists that as between bail depositors, third persons and the state, the state’s legitimate demands first must be met out of the fund, after which payment safely could be made to the depositor (presumptive owner) unless prior thereto someone appears claiming a paramount right thereto, in which event the depositee well might deposit the fund into court for disbursement to him, who, in a proper hearing, is determined to be the true owner, — a sound conclusion so far as elementary principles of property are concerned and even though our statutes talk of the deposit by the defendant and’the return thereof to the defendant.5
Certainly one voluntarily depositing the money is charged with the provisions for its forfeiture and could claim nothing save what remains after the state’s legitimate demands have been satisfied. To hold that third persons, — even a defendant, — who had no interest in the money could prevail against the true owner, would be to sanction, in my opinion, an unnecessary, abortive and perhaps unconstitutional inroad into fundamental property rights.
WADE, J., concurs in the opinion of Mr. Justice WORTHEN and also in the views expressed in the concurring opinion of Mr. Justice HENRIOD.

. Vol. 14A, Words and Phrases, Entitle, p. 388 et se'q; AVebster’s International Dictionary.

. Utah Rules of Civil Procedure, Form 8, “Complaint for Money Had and Received.”

. Whiteaker v. State, 31 Okl. 65, 119 P. 1003 (bail forfeiture ease. Later in First National Bank of Okmulgee v. Wisdom (Okl.), infra, it was held contra); 6 Am.Jur. 160.

. First National Bank of Okmulgee v. Wisdom, 97 Okl. 298, 223 P. 639; Mundell v. Wells, 181 Cal. 398, 184 P. 666, 7 A.L.R. 383; Wright & Taylor v. Dougherty, 138 Iowa 195, 115 N.W. 908; State v. Bailey, 121 Wash. 413, 209 P. 847; State v. Friend, 212 Iowa 136, 236 N.W. 20; People ex.rel. Meyer v. Gould, 75 App.Div. 524, 78 N.Y.S. 279.

. Titles 77-43-19, 21, U.C.A. 1953.