{
  "id": 2644827,
  "name": "The Walker-Edmund Company, Plaintiff in Error, v. The Bankers Surety Company, Defendant in Error",
  "name_abbreviation": "Walker-Edmund Co. v. Bankers Surety Co.",
  "decision_date": "1909-04-12",
  "docket_number": "Gen. No. 14,418",
  "first_page": "73",
  "last_page": "75",
  "citations": [
    {
      "type": "official",
      "cite": "148 Ill. App. 73"
    }
  ],
  "court": {
    "name_abbreviation": "Ill. App. Ct.",
    "id": 8837,
    "name": "Illinois Appellate Court"
  },
  "jurisdiction": {
    "id": 29,
    "name_long": "Illinois",
    "name": "Ill."
  },
  "cites_to": [],
  "analysis": {
    "cardinality": 315,
    "char_count": 5293,
    "ocr_confidence": 0.488,
    "sha256": "38469e8e4637035026728f6e79830bf6e2e487fd207b7525a9541d4a5cc14468",
    "simhash": "1:6a7c755ad9c39089",
    "word_count": 925
  },
  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T18:19:20.179595+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
  },
  "casebody": {
    "judges": [],
    "parties": [
      "The Walker-Edmund Company, Plaintiff in Error, v. The Bankers Surety Company, Defendant in Error."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "Mr.. Justice Brown\ndelivered the opinion of the court.\nThis Writ of error is brought to reverse a judgment of nil capiat and for costs rendered by the Municipal Court of Chicago against the plaintiff corporation below, which is plaintiff in error here.\nThe suit was brought in the Municipal Court on July 3,1907, and the following bill of particulars filed:\n\u201cPlaintiff\u2019s claim is for the value of one diamond ring of the value of two hundred dollars, property of The Walker-Edmund Co., converted by Bertha M. Owen, while in the employ of the said plaintiff, the defendant being surety on a fidelity bond of the said Bertha M. Owen.\u201d\nThe bond in question was for a thousand dollars and the condition was, \u201cThat the employe shall in the position of saleslady, Stockkeeper and Register, Chicago and in no other, in the employer\u2019s service make good to the employer, within sixty days any loss sustained by the employer by larceny or embezzlement committed by the employe.\u201d There are various conditions on which the bond recites that it is accepted, one of which is that \u201cIt is essential to the validity of this bond that it be signed by the employe\u201d.\nThe bond presented in evidence had not been signed by the employe.\nAfter the termination of Bertha M. Owen\u2019s employment by the plaintiff a diamond ring, which the plaintiff ought -to have found in stock, being unaccounted for under circumstances which led the plaintiff to charge its absence to Miss Owen, it brought suit on the bond. The cause was submitted to a jury and after the introduction of evidence on both sides and instructions by the court on the law, the jury returned a verdict for the defendant. It is to reverse the judgment based on this verdict that the present writ of error is prosecuted.\nWe do not see why we should disturb it. It is at the least extremely doubtful whether the bond was ever valid without the signature of Bertha M. Owen. It is claimed by the plaintiff in error that the plaintiff\u2019s manager not having read the bond, the plaintiff is not chargeable with any knowledge of what was in it, and that the delivery of the bond without the signature of the employe waived the condition which required that signature to make the bond valid.\nIt seems to us rather that if delivering the bond to the employer was to be considered as waiving the signature of the employe, the condition would be useless. Before the bond is delivered, the company has full control of it. It need not deliver it until it is in the form and has all the signatures it requires. Therefore it would not be necessary to put a formal condition in the bond that it was \u201cmade, issued and -accepted\u201d upon the condition that \u201cIt is essential to the validity of this bond that it be signed by the employe\u201d, unless the delivery was expected to precede the signature by the employe. The renewal, by which the Bankers Surety Company, on November 23, 1906, certified that in consideration of the sum of seven 50/100 dollars The Bankers Surety Company \u201chereby continues in force Bond No. 29,247 in the sum of one thousand dollars on behalf of Bertha M. Owen, in favor of Walker-Edmund Company,\u201d might perhaps, with more plausibility be deemed a waiver at that time of the condition, although the certificate contains the proviso that it is \u201csubject to all of the covenants and conditions of said original bond\u201d.\nIt might be said, nevertheless, that the company should then have ascertained whether the employe had signed the bond, \u25a0 and if not, refused the renewal until the signature had been obtained.\nBut it is not necessary for us to decide this question, for in justice to the parties concerned we feel that the decision should be placed on the ground that, assuming the bond to be valid, no breach of it was shown. The instructions were correct which, in various forms, told the jury that recovery could not be had unless they were satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Bertha M. Owen stole the diamond ring in question. We have carefully considered the evidence as far as it appears in the statement certified to by the trial judge, and are no more convinced \u201cbeyond a reasonable doubt\u201d than the jury were, that the young woman named stole or converted the ring. Various other hypotheses seem to us, from the statement, quite as likely.\nWe do not think there would be any benefit in further discussion of the cause. It seems to us that justice has been done, and that any other verdict would have been to give altogether-too far reaching an effect to mere reasons for suspicion.\nThe judgment of the Municipal Court of Chicago is affirmed. Affirmed.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "Mr.. Justice Brown"
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Zachariah B. Waggoner, for plaintiff in error.",
      "Stein, Mayer & Stein, for defendant in error."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "The Walker-Edmund Company, Plaintiff in Error, v. The Bankers Surety Company, Defendant in Error.\nGen. No. 14,418.\nSuretyship\u2014when fidelity bond not binding. Held, that the fidelity bond in suit in this case, which contained a condition as follows: \u201cIt is essential to the validity of this bond that it be signed by the employe\u201d, was not binding upon the company in the absence of the signature of such employe.\nAction of contract. Error to the Municipal Court of Chicago; the Hon. Jonp W. Houston, Judge, presiding.\nHeard in this court at the March term, 1908.\nAffirmed.\nOpinion filed April 12, 1909.\nZachariah B. Waggoner, for plaintiff in error.\nStein, Mayer & Stein, for defendant in error."
  },
  "file_name": "0073-01",
  "first_page_order": 89,
  "last_page_order": 91
}