Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 9.djvu/159

LAW OF SAFE-DEPOSIT COMPANIES. 131 A REVIEW OF THE LAW OF SAFE-DEPOSIT COMPANIES. THE business of conducting public safe-deposit vaults is a com- paratively new one in this country, the first of these institu- tions having been established but about thirty years ago. It was a natural development of the custom that formerly existed among banks of gratuitously according space in their vaults to customers having valuables for which they desired unusual protection. As soon as vaults were established by incorporated companies as separate institutions, the companies, in offering to the public the protection to be obtained from them, assumed toward their patrons distinct relations and liabilities peculiar to the business from its nature. It has been necessary that these relations and liabilities should be defined and established at law, and the constantly in- creasing extent of the business and the importance of its position being recognized, it becomes a matter worthy of attention to con- sider what these are as interpreted by the courts. While the num- ber of cases that have come before them in which safe-deposit companies are primarily involved is singularly small, those adjudi- cated have at the same time made clear the leading principles applicable to the business. The important points to be considered may be stated as fol- lows : — I. The legal relation between the company and its depositors. II. The nature and extent of the liability of the company. III. The position and duty of the company in case of legal pro- ceedings against the property of a depositor. IV. The relation between depositors having a community of inter- est in a safe. I. The Legal Relation between the Company and its Depositors. This resembles in certain respects two species of relation recog- nized by law, — those of landlord and tenant and bailor and bailee. The resemblance to the first exists merely in form, however, sug- gested by the execution of the contract for hiring of the safe in the shape of a lease. In fact, there can be no relation of land- 18