## Facts

- Ryan worked as a clerk selling liquor in Sullivan’s store.
- Sullivan suspected Ryan of dishonesty and arranged for detectives to make a feigned purchase using marked money.
- A detective bought liquor from Ryan and paid with the marked money.
- Ryan placed the money in the open cash-drawer but did not register the sale.
- Minutes later, Ryan removed the marked money from the drawer and appropriated it.
- Evidence permitted a finding that Ryan intended to steal the money before placing it in the drawer and placed it there only temporarily for his own convenience.
- Ryan was indicted for embezzlement under a statute covering clerks/servants who fraudulently convert property received for their employer.

## Issues

1. Whether a clerk who receives money from a customer for the employer and later appropriates it may be convicted of embezzlement when the intent to steal existed before the money was placed in the employer’s cash drawer.
2. Whether briefly placing customer payment in the employer’s cash drawer necessarily transfers possession to the employer so that a later taking by the clerk can only be larceny.

## Decision

- Exceptions overruled; the trial judge’s instruction and submission of the case on an embezzlement theory were upheld.
- The court rejected the claim that the facts required acquittal of embezzlement and, if anything, supported only larceny.
- The court held the jury could find embezzlement even though the money was briefly placed in the cash drawer before removal and conversion.

## Legal Principles

- Embezzlement applies when a clerk or servant lawfully receives property in the course of employment and then fraudulently converts it.
- Larceny requires a trespassory taking from another’s possession; the embezzlement/larceny line turns on the nature of the defendant’s possession or custody at the time of conversion.
- When a third person pays money to a clerk for the employer, the clerk’s handling may constitute possession sufficient for embezzlement under the statute.
- Brief placement of received funds in the employer’s cash drawer does not, by itself, compel a finding that the employer obtained exclusive possession such that the clerk’s later appropriation must be treated as larceny.
- The timing of the intent to appropriate may support treating the conduct as a continuing conversion consistent with embezzlement rather than as a new trespass after the employer’s possession is fixed.

## Conclusion

The court sustained an embezzlement theory where a clerk received customer payment for the employer and then converted it, holding that a brief deposit in the employer’s cash drawer did not automatically convert the case into larceny and that the jury could treat the conduct as embezzlement based on the clerk’s possession and intent.


Commonwealth v. Ryan, 155 Mass. 523, 30 N.E. 364 (1892)