Lewis v. State

60 S.E.2d 663, 82 Ga. App. 280
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedJuly 21, 1950
Docket32921
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 60 S.E.2d 663 (Lewis v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lewis v. State, 60 S.E.2d 663, 82 Ga. App. 280 (Ga. Ct. App. 1950).

Opinion

MacIntyre, P. J.

1. On a true bill, returned on April 22, 1949, Julian H. Lewis was indicted for larceny after trust under Code § 26-2809. He was convicted and sentenced to serve from two to five years in the penitentiary. His motion for a new trial was overruled and he excepted.

The jury was authorized to find that from March 1947 until June 1948, the defendant' was a bookkeeper employed by D. A. Eubanks, doing business as Eubanks Appliance Company, in a fiduciary capacity. The duties of the defendant were to keep books, to handle money, to make bank deposits, to make up pay rolls and to pay employees, including himself. In the course of his employment, the defendant was specifically entrusted as a fiduciary bailee with the money or funds of his employer which were paid into the Eubanks Appliance Company for the designated purpose of applying the same for the use and benefit of Mr. Eubanks. See Scarboro v. State, ante, p. 273. During the period the defendant was intrusted with such money in the prosecutor’s business, there accumulated an aggregate shortage in the cash account in the amount of $4,316.96, and an aggregate shortage in the pay-roll account in the amount of $174.97, as evidenced by the books kept by the defendant himself. The defendant had two personal bank accounts—in separate banks. He deposited $3,759.99 in the First National Bank and $7,828.96 in the Bank of Fulton County during the period from September 1947 through June 1948, making a total of $11,588.73, although he was earning only $200 and $220 per month during that ten-month period. The defendant made no deposits during June 1948, but he deposited $3,670.18 ($855.94 in the First National Bank and $2,814.14 in the Bank of Fulton County) during the month of March, 1948.

Concerning State’s Exhibit No. 1, which was a check in the amount of $147.04, drawn on the account of the Eubanks Appliance Company in the First National Bank of Atlanta by D. A. Eubanks, and payable to the order of W. L. Hamilton and endorsed by Hamilton and J. H. Lewis, W. L. Hamilton *282 testified that he was an employee of the Eubanks Appliance Company and that this check was his salary check which he asked Lewis to cash in order that he could pay the Eubanks Appliance Company $10.45 on a bill which he, Hamilton, owed for a pressure cooker. He stated that Lewis took the check, placed it in the cash register of the Eubanks Appliance Company and gave him from that cash register the difference between the amount of the check ($147.04) and the payment made ($10.45), namely, $136.59, and that Lewis gave him a receipt for the $10.45 payment. Hamilton stated unequivocally that Lewis did not cash the check out of his own pocket or personal funds, but that he cashed it out of the cash drawer of the Eubanks Appliance Company.

In explanation of this same transaction with Hamilton, the defendant in his statement to the jury replied that he had loaned Hamilton some money and that when Hamilton gave him the check to cash, he took the money out of his own pocket and put the check in his pocket, giving Hamilton the difference between the check and the amount which Hamilton owed him and that thereupon Hamilton then handed him the $10.45 in payment of the bill which Hamilton owed the Eubanks Appliance Company, and that he, Lewis, the defendant, went over to the cash register and wrote the receipt for the payment on Hamilton’s account. From the evidence and the defendant’s statement to the jury, which was in effect that this was his individual money and that he did not restore any part of it to the cash register of the Eubanks Appliance Company since he did not take it out of the cash register, but that he did place the $10.45 payment in the cash register, the jury was authorized to find from Hamilton’s version of the transaction that Lewis took the money from the cash register and that he did not restore any part except the $10.45 payment and to further find that he converted this money to his own use.

Concerning State’s Exhibit No. 3, which was another salary check in the amount of $197.46, drawn by D. A. Eubanks on the account of Eubanks Appliance Company in the First National Bank of Atlanta, payable to the order of W. L. Hamilton, endorsed by Hamilton, and endorsed by the defendant Lewis for deposit only to the account of Julian H. Lewis, Ham *283 ilton testified that this check was cashed by Lewis for him from a cash box, or drawer, at the Eubanks Appliance Company, known as the General Electric Credit Corporation cash, or credit, drawer. Referring to the transaction of cashing this check for Hamilton, the defendant in his statement to the jury, admitted that he had cashed the check from such drawer, but explained: “I would take the money out of the General Electric account because Mr. Eubanks did not want it to go through the books, and he would not permit me to buy a money order because it cost money, and I would have to endorse it [the check] to get a cashier’s check [to send the money to General Electric Credit Corporation].” Mr. Eubanks had explained in his testimony in the case that in the operation of his business, he frequently sold merchandise on contract and transferred or hypothecated the contracts with General Electric Credit Corporation, and that he, though not compelled to do so, frequently collected money on the contracts which had been transferred to the General Electric Credit Corporation, and that these collections were kept in a separate drawer. At such times as he received money or checks for the General Electric Credit Corporation, he, or his employees, made a slip which was sent to the General Electric Corporation and a duplicate of that ■ slip was pinned to the money or the check received. At such times as he delivered these funds to the General Electric Credit Corporation, it was his practice and arrangement with ■ the corporation that he take the cash to his bank and purchase a cashier’s check made payable to the General Electric Credit Corporation, but if there were checks in this drawer, it was necessary for him or his wife, the only two persons so authorized, to endorse any such checks before the bank would accept them in payment for the cashier’s check. Thus, we see, that if it should happen that one of the checks which Eubanks received for the General Electric Credit Corporation should happen to be no good, with his endorsement on it, he would be held accountable to the bank for the amount of such check. If money or checks were taken from the General Electric Credit Corporation’s cash drawer after a slip had been made for it or them and forwarded to the corporation, the corporation would, of course, hold Eubanks accountable for the difference. From the *284 defendant’s statement the jury was authorized to infer that he had endorsed the check in question for deposit to his own account and had given his own check to cover the difference, or the jury was authorized to find that he only endorsed the check to be deposited to his own account and that he did not cover the resulting shortage in the General Electric Credit Corporation’s account with his own check. It follows that the jury was authorized to find that in both of the transactions in which Lewis cashed checks for Hamilton, Lewis converted money belonging to Eubanks, and that this was, under the other evidence, done secretly and fraudulently.

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Bluebook (online)
60 S.E.2d 663, 82 Ga. App. 280, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lewis-v-state-gactapp-1950.