Court Opinion

ID: 9417975
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 20:45:38.919485+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:53.532640
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Harlan.,
dissenting.
I dissent from so much of the opinion and judgment as holds that the offenses charged against the defendant, based on the checks made at St. Louis- and mentioned in the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth counts, were cbmmitted in this District, where the checks .were received by him; and not at St. Louis, where they were paid by the bank on which they were drawn for his benefit. ■ I-am of' opinion that the Riggs National Bank, upon receiving the checks from the accitsed, became, in every substantial sense, his agent and representative to- present the checks and' receiye the proceeds thereof; in which case, the offense of receiving, by means of those checks, compensation for services rendered in violation of the statute was committed at St. Louis, not at Washington. In a strict sense, no title or ownership of the checks passed to the Riggs National Bank, as in the case of an unconditional sale, consummated by actual delivery,.of tangible, personal property for the recovery of the possession off which the owner could, of right, maintain an action in his own name; for, if the St. Louis bank on which the checks were drawn had refused to accept or honor them, no-*309action on the checks, or at all, could have been maintained against it by the Riggs National Bank. Bank of Republic v. Millard, 10 Wall. 152, 156; First National Bank v. Whitman, 94 U. S. 343, 344; St. Louis &c. Railway v. Johnston, 133 U. S. 566, 574; Fourth Street Bank v. Yardley, 165 U. S. 634, 643. The -checks were made at St. Louis and sent by mail from that city to the accused in discharge of an obligation assumed by his client at that city, and, as between him and his client, in the absence of any special agreement on the subject, compensation for' services rendered by him before the Department could only be deemed to have been really made when the checks were paid by the bank on which, they were directly drawn. It is true that when the Riggs National Bank received the checks and •'redited the account of the accused on its books with the arnounu thereof, there arose, as between that bank and him, only the relation of debtor and creditor. But when his account at that bank was so credited, he became liable, by implied contract — if the St. Louis bank failed to accept or pay the check when presented — to pay back to the bank an amount equal to the credit he received on the books of the Riggs National Bank. If the St. Louis bank had refused to accept or pay the checks when presented, and if the accused had then sued his client on its original contract with him, the latter could not have resisted recovery upon the ground that he received compensation by having his account at the Washington bank credited with the amount of thé checks. Suppose the accused had been indicted in Washington on the day after the checks were indorsed to the Riggs National Bank, and the checks were not honored or paid when presented at the St. Louis bank, could he in that case have been convicted under the statute by proof that he received such credit at the former bank for the amount of the checks? Clearly not. Yet he could have been, if it be true that he was compensated, ■ within the meaning of the statute, when his account with the Riggs National Bank was credited with the amount of the cheeks. As between the accused and his client, he was not, in .any true, *310sense, compensated for the services alleged to have been rendered in violation of the statute, until by payment of the checks by the St. Louis bank he was relieved of all liability to the Riggs National Bank arising from his indorsing the checks to it. The accused is to be Regarded as having received, at St. .Louis, compensation for his services, because the check made in his behalf was paid there to his representative. The offense was, therefore, consummated at that city, and the Federal Court at St. Louis had jurisdiction.
Nor, in my opinion, does the record show any error, in respect nf instructions that were to the substantial prejudice of the accused; no error for which the judgment, should-be reversed.
It seems to me that in reversing the judgment upon tire grounds stated in the opinion the court .has sacrificed substance to mere form. The result, I submit, well illustrates the familiar maxim: Qui haeret .in litera haeret in cortice.