Taylor v. Labeaume

• Citation: 14 Mo. 572
• Parties: NATHAN C. D. TAYLOR v. LOUIS T. LABEAUME.
• Decision Date: 31 March 1851
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Missouri

14 Mo. 572

NATHAN C. D. TAYLOR

v.LOUIS T. LABEAUME.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

March Term, 1851.

ERROR TO. ST LOUIS CIRCUIT COURT.

FIELD, for Plaintiff. The error of the court below consisted in giving the instruction which in effect took the whole case from the jury and compelled the plaintiff to become non-suit. The instruction says that the transaction by which the plaintiff acquired his title was not within the authority of his agent. But the true character of the transfer, and the extent of the agent's authority, were both matters of fact to be determined by the jury. The court below consequently touched on the province of the jury, in assuming by its instruction to decide those matters of fact.

TODD & KRUM, for Defendant. 1. The instruction given by the court was according to the law of the case, under the testimony introduced by the plaintiff--according to that testimony the only power Perkins had for disposing of the lumber was to sell it. In a written power of agency containing all of the foregoing expressions of powers, both general and specific, by the settled rule of construction, the general expressions of power would be so restrained by the powers specifically named as to exclude every power of a different nature from those specified and what are unusual in the conduct of the business with reference to which the general powers are given: 7 Wend. 446; 5 Barn. & Adol. 240; 5 Vesey, jr., 211; 6 Barn. & Cres. 278; Story on Agency, § § 62, 69. As an agent with general authority to conduct and carry on the business of the St. Croix Falls Company, to sell their lumber and pay debts incurred in the business, Perkins had power only to conduct and carry on the business, in the usual way thereof--his sales were to be for cash, and not on credit, and he should have paid the debts in cash, unless some custom or usage of the business be proved to the contrary: 1 Campbell, 258; 3 Pick. 495; 6 Maule & Selw. 1, 14; 2 Stark. 21; 5 Wend. 33; 13 Mass. R. 178; 3 Barn. & Adol. 616; Story on Agency, §§ 77, 98, 99, 113, 225. A universal agent can never be inferred if it can potentially exist: Story, §§ 21, 19, 126, 128, 131.2. As the defendant took this property for a debt of the St. Croix Lumber Company, he has the right to show that no title passed from Perkins to Taylor: 13 Johns. R. 363, Beal v. Allen 3. The bill of parcels of Perkins to Taylor of the lumber does not transfer the title of the company. By it Taylor buys the lumber of Perkins simply and directly as principal

BIRCH, J.

A company called the “St. Croix Falls Company,” of which Robert Rantoul, Jr., of Massachusetts, was president, and other citizens of that State were the members, was engaged, through their agent, Perkins, in manufacturing lumber at the falls of that river (in Wisconsin), to carry on which, in its various departments, including the rafting of it to St. Louis, which was the principal place of sale, required a great number of workmen.

Of the nature and extent of Perkins' agency, concerning which there is no written authority, we deem that there is even less ambiguity than seems to be conceded in the argument of the appellant's counsel, inasmuch as having been himself the best witness who was introduced in reference to it, after its establishment by others, he swears distinctly and uncontradictedly, that at the time of the transaction which constitutes the turning point in this suit, he “was the agent of the company, with full authority to transact any business for them--to employ men, purchase logs, sell lumber, or to perform any other business connected with the said company.” It may as well be here added, as seeming to us, that the aggregate of the other testimony concerning the statements and conversations of Rantoul, the president of the company, when he visited the falls in July, 1848, rather strengthens than subtracts from the clear and explicit statement of the agent himself.

It appears that the members of the company never had any personal charge of its business operations, and that during the summer of 1848, being much in arrear to the workmen, for wages, and having no money wherewith to pay them, Perkins proposed, in response to...