{
  "id": 5319169,
  "name": "Anthony Best, Claimant, v. State of Illinois, Respondent",
  "name_abbreviation": "Best v. State",
  "decision_date": "1978-05-25",
  "docket_number": "No. 77-CC-0872",
  "first_page": "223",
  "last_page": "225",
  "citations": [
    {
      "type": "official",
      "cite": "32 Ill. Ct. Cl. 223"
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  "court": {
    "name_abbreviation": "Ill. Ct. Cl.",
    "id": 8793,
    "name": "Illinois Court of Claims"
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    "id": 29,
    "name_long": "Illinois",
    "name": "Ill."
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      "cite": "57 Ill. App. 2d 90",
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  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T16:54:10.322906+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
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  "casebody": {
    "judges": [],
    "parties": [
      "Anthony Best, Claimant, v. State of Illinois, Respondent."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "Polos, C.J.\nClaimant, Anthony Best, formerly an inmate of the Joliet Correctional Center at Joliet, Illinois, has brought this action to recover the value of certain items of personal property which he alleges were lost during the course of its transfer from the Cook County Jail to the Joliet Correctional Center.\nOn February 4,1977, Claimant was confined at the Cook County Jail in Chicago, Illinois, prior to transfer to the Joliet Correctional Center at Joliet, Illinois. He had in his possession certain items of personal property including a watch, wallet, credit cards, personal papers, a small amount of cash, and a necklace.\nImmediately prior to his beginning his journey to Joliet, these items were put in a personal property envelope and carried on a bus, along with Claimant, to the diagnostic depot at Joliet. An officer of the Illinois Department of Corrections had custody of Claimant\u2019s personal property during the bus trip to Joliet.\nOn arrival at Joliet, Claimant requested that his personal property be sent home. Claimant has attached as an exhibit to his Complaint an \u201cOfficial Receipt\u201d issued by the Joliet Correctional Center for his watch and wallet. The receipt indicates that the watch and wallet were to be mailed to a relative of Claimant in Chicago, and the receipt was signed by Claimant and an officer of the Department of Corrections.\nClaimant\u2019s Aunt received his wallet, but not his watch.\nClaimant purchased the watch at Simon\u2019s Jewelry Store in Omaha, Nebraska for $180.60. He said that on February 4, 1977, it was in good working order.\nThis Court held in Doubling v. State, 32 Ill.Ct.Cl.1, (No. 75-CC-833), decided November 7, 1977, that the State has a duty to exercise reasonable care to safeguard and return an inmate\u2019s property when it takes actual physical possession of such property during the course of the transfer of an inmate between penal institutions.\nWhile bailment is ordinarily a voluntary contractual transaction between bailor and bailee, various types of constructive and involuntary bailments have been recognized:\n\u201cA constructive bailment can be created between an owner of the property and one in possession thereof.\u201d 4A Illinois Law and Practice 550, Bailments, citing Chesterfield Sewer & Water, Inc., v. Citizens Insurance Co. of New Jersey, et al., 57 Ill. App. 2d 90, 207 NE2d 84.\nIn Chesterfield, the Court quotes from Woodson v. Hare, 244 Ala. 301, 13 So2d. 172, at 174, as follows:\n\u201cAn actual contract or one implied in fact is not always necessary to create a bailment. Where, otherwise than by mutual contract of bailment, one person has lawfully acquired the possession of personal property of another and holds it under circumstances whereby he ought, upon principles of justice, to keep it safely and restore it or deliver it to the owner, such person and the owner of the property are, by operation of law, generally treated as bailee and bailor under a contract of bailment, irrespective of whether or not there has been any mutual assent, express or implied, to such relationship.\u201d\nThe loss or damage to bailed property while in the possession of the bailee raises a presumption of negligence which the bailee must rebut by evidence of due care. The effect of this rule is not to shift the ultimate burden of proof from the bailor to the bailee, but simply to shift the burden of proceeding or going forward with the evidence.\nAt the trial of this cause the State presented no testimony to explain the disappearance of Claimant\u2019s property, and presented no testimony of its freedom from negligence.\nClaimant\u2019s prima facie case, therefore, stands unrebutted.\nIt is therefore ordered, that Claimant be, and hereby is, awarded the sum of $180.60.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "Polos, C.J."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "(No. 77-CC-0872\nAnthony Best, Claimant, v. State of Illinois, Respondent.\nOpinion filed May 25, 1978."
  },
  "file_name": "0223-01",
  "first_page_order": 337,
  "last_page_order": 339
}