Webber

This is an action by plaintiff for himself and as assignee of twenty-one claims, against the Bank of Tracy, for the value of the contents of safe-deposit boxes, kept in the safe-deposit vault of the Byron Branch of said bank, which were burglarized on January 26, 1920. The complaint alleges that the bank was guilty of negligence and want of ordinary care in the protection of the safe-deposit boxes and the preservation of the property contained therein. After trial by jury a verdict was had in plaintiff’s favor on eighteen claims, amounting to $12,322.14; from the ensuing judgment for that amount defendant appeals.

The facts are undisputed. The town of Byron, Contra Costa County, has a population of about 250 and is the center of a peaceful farming community. Its entire business section comprises a single street on the main line of the Southern Pacific Railroad. There is but one two-story building in the place, and all the buildings, with the exception of the bank, are of wood. Until 1911 there was no bank nearer Byron than at Antioch on the northwest about fourteen miles away, and at Tracy on the south, about fifteen miles away; in 1911 the Bank of Tracy instituted a branch at…