State v. Legendre

96 A. 9, 89 Vt. 526, 1915 Vt. LEXIS 242
CourtSupreme Court of Vermont
DecidedNovember 15, 1915
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 96 A. 9 (State v. Legendre) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Vermont primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Legendre, 96 A. 9, 89 Vt. 526, 1915 Vt. LEXIS 242 (Vt. 1915).

Opinion

Watson, J.

The respondent was found guilty of unlawfully selling and furnishing intoxicating liquor. At the close of the evidence, he moved for a directed verdict on the ground, first, (and this is said in respondent’s brief to embrace generally all other grounds specifically stated,) that there is no evidence which warrants the submission of the case to the jury. To the overruling of the motion, an exception was-saved.

It appeared that the respondent is a barber, and has a barber’s shop in the village of St. Johnsbury; that this shop consists of two rooms, one of them a small room to enter which one must go through a door from the large room in which the [528]*528general work of the shop is done; that in the small room, is a cupboard and a closet. G-eorge Donahue, a witness called by the State, testified that in the forenoon of the next day after Christmas in 1914, he went into respondent’s barber shop to get something to drink, and there got a pint of whiskey, the witness continuing, “I went into that little room there and a fellow was there and I asked him if he couldn’t scare up a pint and lie-said he guessed so, and I paid him and he went into the closet and got it”; that he paid the fellow seventy-five cents for it; that the witness did not know who the fellow was, of whom he got the whiskey, but testified that it was not the respondent. It further appeared that on the 8th day of January, thirteen days after the time of the sale in question, the chief of police searched the respondent’s barber shop, and found there in the cupboard in the small room six pints of whiskey and five or six empty bottles having the same labels on them as were on the bottles containing the whiskey, which whiskey and empty bottles were produced in court and made exhibits in the case; that when this search was made, the respondent was present, also one other man whose name the policeman did not know, but the officer testified that he did not know whether the liquor found belonged to the respondent or to some one else. There -was no evidence tending to show that anyone had any rights in the rooms included in the barber shop, other than the respondent.

No contention is made but that the evidence was sufficient to go to the jury on the question of a sale or furnishing of intoxicating liquor without authority; but it is said that there was no evidence fairly tending to show that -the selling or furnishing was by the respondent or by his agent. The position of the State is, that the sale was by the agent or servant of the respondent, and that the latter is criminally responsible in law therefor. It remains to be considered, therefore, whether there was evidence warranting the court in submitting the ease to the jury on the question of such agency.

The authority of an agent may be by parol and collected from the circumstances. Martin v. Webb, 110 U. S. 7, 28 L. ed. 49, 3 Sup. Ct. 428; Lindquist v. Dickson, 98 Minn. 369, 107 N. W. 958, 6 L. R. A. (N. S.) 729, 8 Ann. Cas. 1024. Agency may be presumed from the conduct of the parties. Uniontown Grocery Co. v. Dawson, 68 W. Va. 332, 69 S. E. 845, Ann. Cas. 1912 B, 148. The authority of an agent or servant may be im[529]*529plied from a single transaction. Story on Agency, 7th ed. 959; Aga v. Harbach, 127 Iowa, 144, 102 N. W. 833, 109 Am. St. Rep. 377, 4 Ann. Cas. 441. Agency need-not be proved as an independent fact, bnt it may be inferred from a variety of facts; and although the testimony as to the fact of agency may not be full and satisfactory, yet if it fairly tends to prove the existence of that relation, it should be submitted to the jury. Darrin v. Whittingham, 107 Md. 46, 68 Atl. 269; London Savings Fund Soc. v. Hagerstown Savings Bank, 36 Penn. St. 498, 78 Am. Dec. 390.

The jury might reasonably find from the evidence that the respondent had the sole control and management of the barber •shop in question, his place of business, before, at the time of, and subsequent to the unlawful sale proved. And from the fact that the liquor was sold in the small room which was a part of his place of business, and was taken from the closet in that room for the purpose of such sale, from the fact that the person to whom the sale was made, to go into the small room, had to go, and did go, through the large room of the barber shop, where the general work of the shop was done, and could get out only by going back the same way, from the fact that within -two weeks afterwards, on search being made by officers of the law, six pints of whiskey, and five or six empty pint bottles having the same labels on them as were on the bottles containing the whiskey, were found in the cupboard in the room where the sale in question was made, and from the fact that the respondent was present during the time of this search, it might fairly and reasonably be inferred that he was the owner of the liquor, for the unlawful sale of which he is now being prosecuted, (State v. Suiter, 78 Vt. 391, 63 Atl. 182,) and that the sale was in fact by his agent or servant, with such assent and concurrence therein by him as to make him morally and legally responsible for the act. It follows that the evidence was such as to justify the submission of the ease to the jury on the question of agency, and on that of the guilt of the respondent. 1 Bish. Crim. L. Sec. 631; Bish. Stat. Crimes, Sec. 1024; State v. Dow, 21 Vt. 484; Commonwealth v. Nichols, 10 Met. 259, 43 Am. Dec. 432; Commonwealth v. Park, 1 Gray, 553; State v. Caswell, 2 Humph. 399; Thompson v. State, 5 Humph. 138; Commonwealth v. Major, 6 Dana, 293; Schmidt v. State, 14 Mo. 137; State v. Pigg, 78 Kan. 618; 97 Pac. 859, 19 L. R. A. (N. S.) 848, 130 Am. St. Rep. 387; [530]*530Commonwealth v. Holmes, 119 Mass. 195. The motion for a verdict was properly, overruled.

It is urged that the evidence of the search made in respondent’s barber shop, by the officers of the law, thirteen days after the alleged unlawful sale, and of the whiskey and empty bottles then found there, was improperly received, as it had no tendency to show a sale by him on the day in question. But we think this evidence tended to show that intoxicating liquor had been kept there for the purpose of illegal traffic, and to connect the respondent in ownership with the whiskey sold to Donahue at the time alleged. State v. Suiter, cited above. To receive the evidence was not error. See Commonwealth v. Van Stone, 97 Mass. 548.

Before the arguments of counsel began, the court informed them that it should hold that if the jury found that the liquor produced in court was found in the possession of the respondent, and also found that liquor had been sold in respondent’s place of business, it would be evidence which the jury might consider as tending to show that he had to do with the sale charged in this case, and that it might be considered upon that subject.

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Bluebook (online)
96 A. 9, 89 Vt. 526, 1915 Vt. LEXIS 242, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-legendre-vt-1915.