Lawlor v. Scheper
| Decision Date | 04 December 1957 |
| Docket Number | No. 17359,17359 |
| Citation | 232 S.C. 94,101 S.E.2d 269 |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | John T. LAWLOR, Respondent, v. Frank X. SCHEPER et al., of whom Scheper & Bullock Realty & Insurance Company is Appellant. |
Ryan L. Scott, Columbia, for appellant.
Jack D. Simrill, Rock Hill, for respondent.
This action was brought by a buyer of real estate against the seller and his agents to recover actual and punitive damages for an alleged false and fraudulent representation by the agents as to the amount owing on two mortgages covering the property. At the conclusion of plaintiff's testimony, the Court granted a nonsuit as to punitive damages but refused the motion as to actual damages. At the conclusion of all the testimony, the trial Judge directed a verdict in favor of plaintiff against all defendants for $650 actual damages and for the further sum of $62.65 against the seller. Only the agents have appealed. They contend that if there is any liability, it is solely that of the seller, a known principal, and that the Court erred in refusing their motions, timely made, for nonsuit and directed verdict as to all damages.
On August 23, 1955, H. A. Baker authorized appellants, real estate agents in West Columbia, to sell a house and lot near the town of Eau Claire owned by him and his wife for $10,800. Through the efforts of appellants, respondent John T. Lawlor, on September 8, 1955, entered into a written contract with H. A. Baker to purchase the property for $10,800, the price at which it was listed with the agents, by assuming two mortgages and paying the difference of $650 in cash. The following day the transaction was closed and deed executed by Baker and his wife to respondent which recited a consideration of $650 cash and the assumption of a first mortgage held by the Security Federal Savings & Loan Association and a second mortgage held by one W. F. Graham. The deed set out the dates and original amounts of these two mortgages but did not specify the balances due thereon.
Appellants admitted in their answer that they represented to respondent that a down payment of $650 'plus the balances of the first and second mortgages on the premises made a total of $10,800.' This was in effect a representation that the total amount due on the two mortgages to be assumed was $10,150. The testimony shows that respondent relied on this statement in closing the transaction and did not discover its incorrectness until four or five months later. It then developed that at the time of the sale there was due on the first mortgage $6,135.89 and on the second mortgage $4,686.31, making a total of $10,822.20, or 676.20 more than the amount represented. Sometime thereafter this action was commenced.
Baker, the seller, contended that if there was any representation made as to the balance due on the two mortgages, it was done without his knowledge. The testimony shows that he had no part in the negotiations and that the deed was drawn and transaction closed by appellants in their office. As heretofore stated, appellants admit making the representation. They say that they obtained the information as to the balance due on the building and loan mortgage by examining Baker's 'pass book', and the amount due on the second mortgage by calling Graham, the mortgagee, and that the information thus obtained was believed by them to be true and was given in good faith.
The defense of appellants is that they were not parties to the contract of sale but were mere agents for a known principal, and that any liability is that of the seller. (The parties seem to have treated Baker as the sole seller although the property was actually owned by him and his wife.) Appellants invoke the general rule that if a contract is made with a known agent acting within the scope of his authority for a disclosed principal, the contract is that of the principal alone and the agent is...
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In re Teknek, LLC
...director, or shareholder to potential liability in spite of a corporate or other business-entity form, e.g., Lawlor v. Scheper, 232 S.C. 94, 101 S.E.2d 269, 271 (1957) (an agent of a principal is personally liable for his own torts, such as fraud, in spite of acting on behalf of the princip......
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Gross v. Sussex Inc.
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Rodrigues v. United Pub. Workers
...liability for his own tortious acts is unaffected by the fact that he acted in his representative capacity." (citing Lawlor v. Scheper, 232 S.C. 94, 101 S.E.2d 269 (1957) )); Whitson Co. v. Bluff Creek Oil Co., 278 S.W.2d 339, 347 (Tex. Civ. App. 1955) ("[A]n agent is always primarily liabl......
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Columbia Briargate Co. v. First Nat. Bank in Dallas
...acts [in such an action is plain and] is unaffected by the fact that he acted in his representative capacity." Lawlor v. Scheper, 232 S.C. 94, 98-99, 101 S.E.2d 269, 271 (1957). That principle was recently applied in another South Carolina case similar factually to this case. A corporation ......