Sims v. Rockwell

• Decision Date: 10 May 1892
• Parties: SIMS v. ROCKWELL.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

156 Mass. 372

31 N.E. 484

SIMS v. ROCKWELL.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

May 10, 1892

COUNSEL

I.D. Van Duzee, for plaintiff.

E.L Buffington and Baker & Sharkey, for defendant.

OPINION

KNOWLTON, J.

The only question in this case is whether there was evidence that the defendant authorized her husband to employ a real-estate broker to sell or exchange her farm or ratified his act of employing a broker in her behalf. It was proved by the testimony of the defendant and her husband which was introduced without objection, that she had a farm which she wished to sell or exchange; that her husband, having seen the plaintiff's advertisement, went to his office, and talked with him about the business, and left his address; that afterwards the plaintiff sent her husband a letter, asking him to call; that her husband went to the plaintiff's office, and was introduced to one Tuttle, who had an estate in Roxbury which he wished to exchange; that Tuttle took him out, and showed him the estate, and the defendant afterwards went with him, and looked at the property, and decided not to make the exchange. It was proved in the same way that about a month later she accepted another offer, made by Tuttle in behalf of his nephew, to take her farm, and pay for it in stock, and that a sale was in this way effected. The defendant's husband assumed to act for her in attempting to make a sale or exchange of her farm, and she availed herself of what he did, so far, at least, as to go with him and examine the property proposed to be given in exchange, after he had conducted the preliminary negotiations, and had examined it himself. She seems to have taken up the negotiations at the point to which he had brought them. When a husband acts for his wife in the management or disposition of her farm, and when his action naturally tends to accomplish her known wishes in regard to it, it needs but little evidence to warrant an inference that it was authorized by her. Arnold v. Spurr, 130 Mass. 347; Wheaton v. Trimble, 145 Mass. 345, 14 N.E. 104. In the present case, in view of the circumstances above stated, and of their relations, it is fairly to be inferred that he disclosed to her what he had done; and her conduct in going with him to Roxbury to look at the estate with a view of completing what he had begun if the property should seem to her sufficiently desirable, is evidence that he either had original authority to represent her in the business, or that she ratified his action in her behalf as she understood it. What his action was at the plaintiff's office was in dispute at the trial. The plaintiff testified...