Lorton & Co. v. Russell & Holmes
| Decision Date | 17 September 1889 |
| Citation | 43 N.W. 112,27 Neb. 372 |
| Parties | LORTON & CO. v. RUSSELL & HOLMES |
| Court | Nebraska Supreme Court |
ERROR to the district court for Johnson county. Tried below before BROADY, J.
AFFIRMED.
John C Watson, for plaintiff in error:
Agency to receive a check payable to order, implies no authority to endorse it in the principal's name. (Dodge v Bank, 20 O. S., 234 [30 O. S., 1].) To justify a refusal to pay money on the ground of former payment, bank must show that its payee was authorized to receive payment. (Citizens' Bank v. Importers', etc., Bank, Ry. & Corp., Law Journal, Vol. IV, No. 23, p. 540.) The depositions were immaterial and irrelevant.
S. P Davidson, for defendant in error:
The case of Dodge v. Bank (supra) is not in point, as the pretended payee there had no business relations with the real payee. When the agent's acts affect innocent third parties, the principal will be bound to the extent of the apparent authority conferred. (Webster v. Wray, 17 Neb. 579, 581.) Where one of two innocent parties must suffer, and one of them has enabled an injurious act to be done, it should be the latter. (Kasson v. Noltner, 43 Wis. 650-1; Story on Agency, sec. 127.) The principal may be bound by a mere holding out of authority, even though proved by circumstantial evidence. (Bouck v. Enos, 61 Wis. 663-4.) As to the question of general agency, Story on Agency, sec. 17; Edwards on Bills and Notes, sec. 81; Lumber Co. v. Stone, 19 Neb. 402-5-6.)
This cause is brought on error for review of the adverse decision of the district court of Johnson county.
The original action was by Lorton & Co., merchants at Nebraska City, against Russell & Holmes, bankers at Tecumseh, to recover from defendants the amount of three separate bank checks payable to plaintiffs, or order, of $ 217.39, and interest at ten per cent per annum from January 26, 1886. It is alleged that the checks were received into the hands of a traveling salesman of the plaintiffs, from their customers, in the line of his employment, fraudulently indorsed and cashed by him, and wrongfully paid by the defendants; that without the knowledge or consent of the plaintiffs, the defendants, on the 30th of December, 1885, out of the funds of the drawers of the checks, wrongfully paid to William Bancroft, a clerk of the plaintiffs, who had received the checks in payment of bills of merchandise entrusted to him for collection against the drawers of the checks; that Bancroft was not entitled to collect the money on the checks, but forged the plaintiffs' name thereon for that purpose, of all which the defendants had due notice at the time of payment to Bancroft; and that on the 26th of January, 1886, payment of the checks was demanded by plaintiffs and refused by the defendants.
In their answer the defendants deny that there is due the plaintiffs on any or all of said checks any sum whatever; and further deny that they paid either of the checks without the consent of the plaintiffs, or that the plaintiffs' name was forged upon the checks, or that defendants had any notice of such forgery, or that defendants wrongfully paid the checks to Bancroft.
The defendants set up that at all the times mentioned by the plaintiffs, and for more than one year prior thereto, plaintiffs were wholesale merchants, that they sold merchandise to the merchants of Tecumseh and those of other towns in Johnson and other counties in Nebraska; that the drawers of the checks were merchants of Tecumseh who had large dealings with, and bought large quantities of goods from, the plaintiffs; that William Bancroft during all that time was the agent of the plaintiffs, through whom they sold the goods to the merchants, and who was authorized to collect the bills for the goods so sold, and as such agent had before the times mentioned collected for the plaintiffs a large number of such bills; that it was the plaintiffs' custom to collect bills through such agent; that in pursuance of such custom the agent repeatedly received checks payable to the plaintiffs' order, in payment of such bills upon defendants' and other banks, and then indorsed the plaintiffs' name thereon, and thus collected and received payment of checks for the plaintiffs, all of which was repeatedly ratified by the plaintiffs; and that by such conduct and custom of the plaintiff, defendants were led and induced to believe, and did believe, that Bancroft was authorized to endorse and collect the checks; that during all of said time the plaintiffs employed no other means of collecting such checks than through the agency of, and indorsement of the same by, Bancroft; that the three checks mentioned were presented and indorsed by Bancroft in accordance with said custom and in pursuance of said authority, and without defendants having any notice or knowledge to the contrary; and for these reasons defendants paid the checks.
The reply of the plaintiffs is a general denial of the answer.
There was a trial to the court, a jury being waived, and a finding in favor of the defendants.
The plaintiffs moved for a new trial on the grounds:
1. The finding of the court is contrary to the law and evidence.
2. The court erred in admitting in evidence the depositions excepted to by the plaintiffs.
This motion was overruled and judgment entered on the finding in favor of defendants. The plaintiffs prosecute their petition in error on the same grounds of their motion for a new trial in the court below.
The plaintiffs were wholesale merchants doing business at Nebraska City, and the defendants were bankers at Tecumseh. These places are about forty or forty-five miles distant from each other by the country roads and about sixty miles by the railroad.
One Bancroft was employed by the plaintiffs as a salesman, in the capacity of traveling man, in their business. He had been in their employment as such for a year and a half. His usual traveling territory comprised Tecumseh, and all the towns from Nebraska City to Valley on the Burlington & Missouri River railroad line, including all the towns, with several on the Missouri Pacific line, including Howe, Stella, and Crab Orchard. He was accustomed to go over this route on an average trip of once in two weeks, soliciting orders, and collecting bills of sales to customers on each trip. He exercised general authority in the collection of bills for the plaintiffs in their business at Tecumseh and elsewhere on the route; and was accustomed in the collection of bills to take checks on the banks at Tecumseh and at other points. Such checks payable to the plaintiffs, or order, he habitually indorsed in the plaintiffs' name, presented them for payment at the bank, sometimes receiving cash in payment, and sometimes exchange payable to plaintiffs, but at other times remitting the checks directly to his employers without cashing them.
From the testimony of Robert Payne, of the plaintiffs' firm, it would seem that the authority of Bancroft, as an agent and collector, rested in the custom and circumstances of their business, without having been expressed and defined by the plaintiffs to their salesmen; and no notice was ever given by the plaintiffs to defendants, or to other business men, on Bancroft's route, as to the extent or limit of his authority to bind the plaintiffs as an agent and representative in the transaction of their mercantile sales and collections other than that indicated by the character of his employment, and the manner in which he conducted it.
On the 29th and 30th of December, 1885, Bancroft was at Tecumseh, in pursuance of his employment as salesman and collector for plaintiffs, and...
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