## Facts

- Thomas and George Nevill gave Sullens (defendant), a servant/employee, a promissory or bank note valued at five pounds and directed him to go and obtain silver (change) for it.   
- Sullens took the note to a third party, exchanged it for silver, and thereby obtained the silver as change.   
- After getting the silver, Sullens did not return to the Nevills but instead converted the silver to his own use and left town.   
- He was indicted for larceny of both the original note and the silver obtained as change.   
- At trial, the jury found him guilty only of stealing the silver, not the note.   
- The conviction for stealing the silver was brought before the Court for Crown Cases Reserved for review.   

## Issues

1. Whether Sullens committed larceny of the promissory/bank note when he first received it from his employers for the limited purpose of getting it changed.  
2. Whether Sullens’s subsequent misappropriation of the silver obtained as change constituted larceny, given that he initially received the note and then the silver under an authority conferred by the owners.  

## Decision

- The court held that Sullens was **not** guilty of larceny of the original promissory/bank note, because he received the note with the owners’ consent and only later formed the intent to misappropriate.  
- The court held that Sullens was **properly convicted** of larceny of the silver obtained as change, because when he received the silver from the changer, he did so as the Nevills’ agent for their immediate benefit, and his misappropriation amounted to a trespassory taking of their property.  
- The conviction for larceny of the silver was therefore affirmed.  

## Legal Principles

- Larceny requires a trespassory taking and carrying away of the personal property of another with felonious intent at the time of the taking; if the initial possession is lawfully obtained with the owner’s consent, the later formation of intent generally does not make the initial taking larcenous.  
- When a person is entrusted with an instrument (such as a note) solely to obtain other property (such as coin or silver) for the owner, the property received in exchange may be deemed to be in the constructive possession of the owner from the moment of receipt.  
- If, at the moment the intermediary receives the exchanged property (here, the silver), he forms the intent to appropriate it and does so, that conduct can satisfy the elements of larceny as to the exchanged property, even though he originally held the instrument lawfully.  
- The case illustrates the early common-law distinction between (a) mere possession/ custody and (b) ownership or constructive possession in larceny, and how agency concepts determine whose property is “taken” for purposes of the offense.  

## Conclusion

Rex v. Sullens confirms that a servant who lawfully receives a note to be changed but then appropriates the resulting cash may be guilty of larceny of the cash, because the owner’s constructive possession attaches at the moment of exchange; however, the same servant is not guilty of larceny of the note itself where the note was originally handed over with the owner’s consent and no felonious intent existed at that time.


Rex v. Sullens, 168 Eng. Rep. 1212 (Ct. Crown Cas. Res. 1826)