Bowen v. Farley
| Citation | 152 N.E. 69,256 Mass. 19 |
| Parties | BOWEN v. FARLEY et al. |
| Decision Date | 26 May 1926 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Exceptions from Superior Court, Suffolk County; Philip J. O'Connell, Judge.
Action of contract by John Bowen against Owen F. Farley, Jr., and another, trustees of the Berry Real Estate Trust, a voluntary trust, to recover a balance due on a note. Finding for defendants and plaintiff excepts. Exceptions overruled.
See, also, 152 N. E. 70.
W. W. Clarke, of Boston, for plaintiff.
C. A. Warren, of Boston, for defendants.
This is an action to recover the balance alleged to be due on a promissory note. The plaintiff is a contractor and builder, and the controversy arises out of the erection by him of a garage for the defendants. The defendants are the present trustees of the ‘Berry Real Estate Trust,’ a voluntary trust created by a declaration of trust duly recorded with Suffolk Deeds, its declared objects being ‘for the purpose of acquiring and holding the land upon which the garage was subsequently built and such other real and personal property as thereafter might be conveyed to the trustees for the purposes of the trust.’ The issues between the parties at the trial were (1) is the note in suit binding on the trustees; and (2) was an agreement reached on June 20, 1919, a final settlement between the plaintiff and the parties of all matters arising from the contract for the construction of the garage?
The note was signed, ‘Berry Real Estate Trust Trustees Owen F. Farley, Jr., for Self & Co.’ It was endorsed by Owen F. Farley, Jr., and several payments of principal and a payment of interest were endorsed thereon. While at the time of the execution and delivery of the note the defendants Farley and Weeks constituted the trustees, and the former alone signed for the trustees, it was found by an auditor, to whom the case was referred, that Weeks left the management of the affairs of the trust entirely to Farley and that such was the situation when Farley met the plaintiff on June 20, 1919, and gave him the note in suit; that while Weeks did not expressly authorize Farley to give the note to the plaintiff or know that it had been given until later, he left the matter of settling with the plaintiff entirely to Farley as he had previously left all other business details of the trust to him; that soon after the date of the note Weeks knew that Farley was making regular payments on it and then knew that Farley had come to some kind of an understanding with the plaintiff; that he never objected to these payments; that so far as he could delegate authority to his co-trustee he did by his conduct and acts give to Farley full power to make a settlement with Bowen on behalf of the...
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