Murray v. Beard
| Citation | 7 N.E. 553,102 N.Y. 505 |
| Parties | MURRAY v. BEARD and others. |
| Decision Date | 01 June 1886 |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from general term city court of Brooklyn, affirming a judgment dismissing the complaint.
Henry D. Hotchkiss, for appellant, James Murray.
Thomas E. Pearsall, for respondents, William H. Beard and others.
The claim in this case presents a novel industry, and one which, if successfully carried out, would seem to become the source of profit to its prosecutors without much expenditure of time or money. The plaintiff, a timber broker, learning that the Hamburg American Packet Company was about to build a pier requiring a large number of piles in its construction, and to advertise for bids from timber merchants to supply them, visited the several dealers in such materials in New York and Brooklyn, and obtained prices therefor, and, under the inducement that he would act for them respectively in securing a sale of piles, obtained promises from each that, if he secured a sale for such dealer, he should receive a commission of 25 cents on each pile sold. He did not inform the dealers of the name of the intending purchaser or the fact that a contract could be obtained only by competitive bidding, or that he had effected a similar understanding with other dealers. The company soon thereafter issued proposals for the supply of the piles, and sent invitations to dealers generally, among whom were the defendants, to compete for a contract for the piles required. A number of persons, among whom were the plaintiff, the defendants, and other dealers, submitted bids for such contract, and, after a canvass of such proposals by the company's engineer, he awarded the contract to the defendants. The defendants having refused to pay the plaintiff's claim for commissions, this action was brought to recover them.
Upon the trial the plaintiff was nonsuited by the court below, upon the ground that there was no consideration for the promise to pay commissions. We think the judgment was properly ordered upon that ground, and that it can also be sustained upon the ground of the fraudulent suppression of material facts by the plaintiff in making the contract, as well as that it was contra bonas mores. The plaintiff, while assuming to act for the defendants in obtaining the contract of sale, was in fact under obligations to competing dealers to assist them in effecting the same sale. Thus, if plaintiff's services could have been of advantage to any one, he was under the necessity of being treacherous to one employer or another. An agent is held to uberrima fides in his dealings with his principal; and if he acts adversely to his employer in any part of the transaction, or omits to disclose any interest which would naturally influence his conduct in dealing with the subject of the employment, it amounts to such a fraud upon the principal as to forfeit any right to compensation for services. Story, Ag. §§ 31, 334; Story...
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