Union Terminal Warehouse Co. v. Roberti

STURTEVANT, J.

The plaintiff commenced an action against the defendants asking damages for the conversion of twenty-six bales of cotton. The defendants appeared and answered and the action was tried in the trial court before the court sitting without a jury. Findings in favor of the plaintiff were filed and a judgment was entered thereon in its favor. From that judgment the defendants have appealed under section 953a of the Code of Civil Procedure.

The plaintiff is a corporation conducting a warehouse at San Pedro. During the latter part of 1922 it had on storage several thousand bales of cotton. The cotton was stored one bale high in tiers and rows in a yard adjacent to a cotton compress. The yard was not fenced and on one side a highway was not far removed. The plaintiff had a watchman on duty to watch the yard. Roberti Bros., the defendants, were engaged in the manufacture of mattresses and had a place of business in Los Angeles. During the months of November and December, 1922, a negro, E. L. McAllister, commenced a series of thefts. Later, after certain investigations had been made, he was arrested for stealing twenty-six bales of the plaintiff’s cotton. He pleaded guilty to a charge of grand larceny and was sent to Requa. While there his deposition was taken by the plaintiff. At times he hesitated about answering questions, but after long conferences with the plaintiff’s attorney he consented to proceed. In the deposition he testified that at times he drove a Ford truck and at times he drove a Republic truck; that in the night-time he would time "the plaintiff’s watchman and when the watchman would be at a distant point McAllister would proceed to take a load of cotton, four or eight bales at a time, and then drive to the neighborhood of the defendant’s place of business. At that point he would remain until the defendants opened their doors and then he would enter, negotiate his sale, weigh the load, get a receiving slip and immediately thereafter a check in payment for the load. In this manner he took from the plaintiff twenty-six or twenty-seven bales. In this manner

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he sold and delivered to the defendants all except four bales which he sold to another house. He testified that in the beginning he informed the defendants that he was a dealer in cotton at Imperial. He gave the defendants his name as B. L. Richardson. Thereafter all business was transacted with the defendants under that assumed name. He testified that each bale that he took had a tag attached to it; that he tore off one tag and read what was on it, but that he did not tear off any other tags. He testified that the defendants made no request of him for any personal identification but paid him twenty-two or twenty-three cents a pound for the cotton. There was evidence given by other witnesses that the market price of cotton at that time was as high as twenty-eight cents. On the trial of the case the plaintiff introduced in evidence the receiving slips and paid checks each and all confirming the testimony of Mc-Allister. The plaintiff introduced evidence from its own records as to its weights of the twenty-six bales of cotton. The receiving slips showed the weights as weighed by the defendants.