Case v. Hammond Packing Co.

• Decision Date: 07 March 1904
• Citation: 105 Mo. App. 168,79 S.W. 732
• Parties: CASE v. HAMMOND PACKING CO.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

79 S.W. 732

105 Mo. App. 168

CASE v. HAMMOND PACKING CO.

Kansas City Court of Appeals. Missouri.

March 7, 1904.

PRINCIPAL AND AGENT—AUTHORITY—NOTICE —RATIFICATION.

1. Authority to an agent to sell goods for the principal, and collect the price thereof, does not give him real or apparent authority to open a bank account for the principal, nor to borrow money for it.

2. An agent's checks, signed in his own name, received by the principal, could not give the principal notice that the agent had a bank account in the principal's name.

3. That a principal received and kept money procured by an agent by an overdraft on a bank account which the agent kept in the principal's name does not constitute a ratification of the agent's act, where the principal had no knowledge of the account when he received the money.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Jasper County; J. D. Perkins, Judge.

Action by George A. Case against the Hammond Packing Company. From a judgment in favor of defendant, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

C. V. Buckley, for appellant. Galen & A. E. Spencer (Kay Wood, of counsel), for respondent.

ELLISON, J.

This action is to recover what is termed an overdraft charged to have been made by defendant. The judgment was for defendant in the trial court.

Plaintiff is engaged in the banking business in Joplin. Defendant is a meat packing establishment at St. Joseph, Mo., and one King was its agent at Joplin to sell meat, collect accounts, and remit proceeds to defendant at St. Joseph. We will assume, as contended by plaintiff, that the evidence shows that he opened an account with the plaintiff bank in the name of defendant, "The Hammond Packing Company—W. A. King," and that he made sales of meat for defendant, and collected the price thereof; that he deposited such collections with plaintiff to the credit of the account thus opened. He would from time to time draw his check on this account in his individual name, and send it to defendant, at St. Joseph, as proceeds of his sales of meat. He, however, also deposited his individual funds in this account, and checked on it in his individual business. This mode of business continued for several months, when finally he drew two checks, aggregating $1,581, which overdrew the account that amount. Defendant refused to pay it on the ground that it never authorized the opening of the account with plaintiff, and that it did not know it had been opened until plaintiff demanded payment of the overdraft. The trial court, sitting as a jury, found (and it could not well have done otherwise) that defendant never authorized King to open an account with plaintiff, and that it knew nothing of it. King was not shown to have any other authority to represent defendant than to sell its meat products, and collect and remit the proceeds of such sales. Such agency did not authorize him to open a bank account for defendant, nor to borrow money for it. Nor did such agency confer an apparent authority on King, justifying plaintiff in believing real authority existed. The case is not at all like that of Cross v. Ry. Co., 71 Mo. App. 585; s. c. 141 Mo. 132, 42 S. W. 675. An agent to sell and collect the price has no authority to borrow money for or in the name of his principal, even though it be for use in the principal's business, and the principal could not be held, unless, of course, he should ratify the act.

But it...