Board of Supervisors v. Lovejoy

107 N.W. 276, 143 Mich. 555, 1906 Mich. LEXIS 691
CourtMichigan Supreme Court
DecidedApril 3, 1906
DocketDocket No. 44
StatusPublished

This text of 107 N.W. 276 (Board of Supervisors v. Lovejoy) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Michigan Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Board of Supervisors v. Lovejoy, 107 N.W. 276, 143 Mich. 555, 1906 Mich. LEXIS 691 (Mich. 1906).

Opinion

Ostrander, J.

Defendant Lovejoy was for two terms county treasurer of Macomb county, having been elected in 1898 and again in 1900. The American Bonding <& Trust Company is surety upon his official bonds. The declaration counts specially upon both bonds and contains, also, the common counts in assumpsit. The breaches of the bonds alleged are failure on the part of the treasurer to account and failure to pay over to his successor moneys in his hands. Upon demand of defendants, a bill of the particulars of plaintiff’s demand was furnished, which fills 37 pages of the record, and which attempts to itemize only the money received by the treasurer. It concludes with the statement that plaintiff admits that the defendant Lovejoy, as county treasurer, disbursed the sum of $584,627.60, and turned over to his successor $2,200. Defendant Lovejoy moved the court for an order requiring a further bill of particulars to be furnished, stating in greater detail the moneys claimed to have been received by the treasurer and itemizing the disbursements. An order was made requiring plaintiff to specify with greater certainty certain moneys claimed to have been received, but the court declined to order specification of the moneys disbursed, stating as a reason that the law requires the treasurer to keep a complete set of books showing the receipts and disbursements of the office. Thereupon what was styled an amendment to the bill of particulars was furnished. The total of moneys claimed in the particulars to have been paid to the treasurer is $597,822.56. De[557]*557fendant Lovejoy thereupon pleaded the general issue, with notice that he would show that at various dates stated, seven in number, he made settlements with plaintiff, at each of which there was a full accounting and settlement; that plaintiff took from him all his receipts and vouchers used in said several settlements and destroyed them; that there had been full accord and satisfaction between the parties. No witnesses were sworn on the part of the defendants, but, in the course of the cross-examinations of various of plaintiff’s witnesses, evidence, for the most part documentary, was introduced, tending to prove both the receipt and disbursement of money, no account of which appeared upon the ledger kept by defendant. A substantial judgment for plaintiff resulted.

The writ of error, which is sued out by defendant Love-joy alone, has brought here a printed record ^ of more than 400 pages, upon which record 117 errors are assigned. Before proceeding to a discussion of errors, attention is paid to an assertion, many times repeated in the briefs for. appellant, which, as an alleged or assumed fact, is the major premise in most of the propositions stated and discussed by counsel for appellant. In the statement of facts, it appears in this form:

On the trial, plaintiff’s testimony consists of showing Mr. Lovejoy’s receipts as county treasurer from all sources during his four years’ incumbency of the office.”

In other portions of the brief are to be found the following:

“In the case at bar, plaintiff’s counsel were content to prove the receipts, and introduced no evidence of the disbursements, evidently being under the impression that their duty ended with proof of receipts. * * *
“The plaintiff, in the bill of particulars filed, ‘ conceded that Mr. Lovejoy during the four years paid out the sum of $584,627.60.’ This concession was treated by both counsel for plaintiff and the court as evidence.”

It is undisputed that defendant Lovejoy kept in his office a ledger. This ledger shows that he disbursed, as [558]*558treasurer, various sums of money. It was his official ledger. It and a cashbook and a book called the “sparrow ledger,” containing a single account, were the only books of account which he kept. The cashbook was not turned over to his successor, and was not produced at the trial. There was evidence warranting the jurj in finding that this cashbook was a record of county business, though kept primarily for the benefit or the intelligence of the treasurer. The ledger was put in' evidence by counsel for plaintiff to show cash received. Later, it appears :

“ Counsel for defendant Lovejoy offer in evidence the whole of the so-called Lovejoy ledger, Exhibit 9.
The Court: It may be received.”

This occurred during the cross-examination of Love* joy’s successor in office. This was the book used in the various settlements with the board of supervisors. It is true that, upon various occasions during the trial, counsel for defendants disclaimed, and do now disclaim, any attempt to give evidence touching disbursements made by their client, and asserted that evidence offered by them which tended to prove disbursements was offered only to show the manner in which accounts were kept or settlements made or to prove that the ledger did not, in fact, show all receipts and disbursements of the office. This did not prevent the book and the other documents from being used, for all proper purposes, as evidence. The court and counsel for plaintiff used them as evidence of disbursements. Counsel for defendant do not challenge any entry appearing in the ledger showing disbursements; their client has had the benefit of disbursements therein shown. It is also stated in the brief for appellant that no computation of the sum total of the disbursements shown by the ledger was offered. Whether this is so or not, the total was stated in the court below, went to make up the figures which were submitted by the court to the jury, and it was not at the trial and is not now claimed that it [559]*559was not a true statement.' The criticism of the charge to the effect that the court did not treat, nor allow the jury to consider, the ledger as evidence of disbursements made by the treasurer appears to be wholly unwarranted. The court said to the jury:

“You should also consider whether any receipts or other papers showing the disbursements of money by defendant Lovejoy have been lost which are not entered on the ledger, because if these papers are so entered, evidence remains of them which is already in the case as the whole ledger has been admitted in evidence.”

It is not reasonably possible that counsel or the jury were laboring under any misapprehension of the position of counsel for plaintiff or that it was not understood, by all interested in the trial, that the ledger account of disbursements was used as evidence of such disbursements.

The main contentions of appellant are four in number, and, broadly stated, they are:

1. That it is incumbent upon plaintiff to prove the breaches of the bonds alleged and resulting damage, which involves proof that the total of moneys disbursed by the treasurer was smaller than the total of the sums received by him.

2. That the evidence clearly discloses that the ledger of the treasurer was not kept in a manner to show all receipts or all disbursements; that various other papers, vouchers, and receipts were the sole evidences of certain receipts and disbursements, which papers, receipts, and vouchers, or some of them, were taken from the custody of the treasurer by the authority of the board of supervisors, some of them destroyed by like authority, some of them deposited with the county clerk; that these last-mentioned facts appearing, defendant was, in any event, excused from assuming any burden of showing his disbursements.

3.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
107 N.W. 276, 143 Mich. 555, 1906 Mich. LEXIS 691, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/board-of-supervisors-v-lovejoy-mich-1906.