Breckenridge v. Lewis

• Citation: 84 Me. 349,24 A. 864
• Parties: BRECKENRIDGE v. LEWIS.
• Decision Date: 23 March 1892
• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Maine (US)

24 A. 864

84 Me. 349

BRECKENRIDGE

v. LEWIS.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

March 23, 1892.

(Official.)

Exceptions from superior court, Cumberland county.

Assumpsit by Joseph Breckenridge against Mary A. H. Lewis. There was a verdict for plaintiff, and defendant moves to set the same aside, and excepts. Motion and exceptions overruled.

B. V. Chase,for plaintiff.

Edward Avery and A. A. Strout, for defendant.

HASKELL, J. The plaintiff indorsed the defendant's promissory note for the accommodation of one Morse, the payee, who then negotiated the same, and, when it fell due, the plaintiff paid it, and now sues to recover the amount of the note from the defendant.

1. The signature of defendant to the note was claimed to be a forgery. The court ruled that a defense.

2. The note was claimed to have been fraudulently written by the payee, Morse, over the defendant's name, signed on blank paper, to enable Morse to write an order on a savings bank, where defendant had funds, as the necessities of her business intrusted to Morse might require; and the court ruled that contention no defense.

It is contended that defendant's negligence in the premises should have been submitted to the jury; but that was not necessary, inasmuch as the question of negligence, as matter of fact, need not be considered an element required to charge the defendant under the facts of this case. The payee of the note, Morse, was intrusted with defendant's name in blank, to draw funds necessary to meet the calls of her business, intrusted to the care of her agent, Morse. He was authorized to write an order above defendant's signature, but instead of so doing he wrote a promissory note, and obtained the amount of it from a stranger. He fraudulently used his apparent authority for his own gain instead of his principal's. His relation to his principal is the same as if he had procured the money on an order that he was authorized to write, and then embezzled it. The defendant may be held under the plain rules of agency. By intrusting her signature to her agent for use, the defendant gave him an apparent authority to use it in the manner he 'did. The limited authority, only known to themselves, cannot be held to reach strangers, who neither knew, nor had means of knowing, of that secret limitation. The note, when presented for discount, gave no suggestion of infirmity. The signature was genuine, and apparently the payee, defendant's agent, who indorsed it, had authority to negotiate it. It was apparently the defendant's genuine promise, and she, by intrusting her name to her agent for commercial purposes, held him out as an agent with general powers in relation to it. She clothed him with apparent authority, and cannot now deny it to the loss of any person who innocently relied upon it. It is better that she bear the consequences of misplaced confidence than that an equally innocent person shall suffer. She selected the agent; the plaintiff did not. The apparent authority of the agent makes his act her own, in this case, as effectually as if her authority had been real. That is the doctrine of Young v. Grote, 4 Bing. 253, and of Putnam v. Sullivan, 4 Mass. 45, cited with approval in Wade v. Withington, 1 Allen, 562, and in Bank v. Stowell, 123 Mass. 198, 199, where all the cases, both English and American, are reviewed. See, also, Bedlon v. Churchill, 73 Me. 146.

The Barne doctrine is held in the Earl of Sheffield's Case, L. R. 13 App. Cas. 333, (1888.) The earl authorized his agent to procure a loan for a limited amount, and transferred to him in blank certain stocks, and delivered to him certain bonds for the purpose. The agent procured the loan, and delivered the securities to a broker, who in turn pledged them for his entire indebtedness to certain banks. The earl sought to redeem, but the banks (the broker being insolvent) refused him, relying upon their legal title to the securities. At the first trial redemption was denied upon the ground that the agent was master of the stocks, and had actual authority to convey them. On appeal it was held that the agent had not actual authority to dispose of the stocks as he pleased; that his actual authority was limited to the amount of the loan authorized; but that the banks became owners of the stocks and bonds, having acquired the legal title, without notice of infirmity, through an agent who apparently had full authority to give it. On final appeal, the lords approved the doctrine of the court of appeals, that if the banks as purchasers of the stocks took the legal title from an agent having apparent authority to give it, without notice of his actual limited authority, such title would become absolute; but reversed the judgment of the court of appeals, for the reason that the banks bad actual notice of the limited authority of the broker over the stocks, and allowed the earl to redeem. See, also, Bank v. Cady, L. R. 15 App. Cas. 267.

It is the same doctrine held where the signature is placed to a blank instrument to be tilled by the person intrusted with it, only the blank is a patent limitation of the agent's authority. He may fill the blank as may suit him best, and the principal will...