Woodworth v. School Dist. No. 2 of Stevens County

• Decision Date: 08 October 1918
• Docket Number: 14572.
• Citation: 175 P. 321,103 Wash. 677
• Parties: WOODWORTH v. SCHOOL DIST. NO. 2 OF STEVENS COUNTY. SAME v. UNION HIGH SCHOOL DIST. NO. 3 OF STEVENS COUNTY.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

175 P. 321

103 Wash. 677

WOODWORTH v. SCHOOL DIST. NO. 2 OF STEVENS COUNTY.

SAME v. UNION HIGH SCHOOL DIST. NO. 3 OF STEVENS COUNTY.

No. 14572.

Supreme Court of Washington

October 8, 1918

Department 1. Appeal from Superior Court, Stevens County; John Truax Judge.

Separate actions by R. P. Woodworth against School District No. 2 of Stevens County and against Union High School District No. 3 of Stevens County. From judgments for defendants, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

O. C. Moore, of Spokane, for appellant.

L. B Donley, J. A. Rochford, and F. Leo Grinstead, all of Colville, for respondents.

PARKER J.

These cases were before this court upon appeal from prior judgments rendered against the plaintiff, Woodworth, as assignee of the Self-Winding Clock Company, which judgments were reversed and new trials awarded to the plaintiff by our decision reported in 92 Wash. 456, 159 P. 757, to which we now refer for a statement of the facts of the controversy. The cases were again, by agreement of the parties, tried together in the superior court for Stevens county, resulting in verdicts and judgments against the plaintiff, denying him recovery, from which he has again appealed to this court.

There is here presented, as upon the former trial and appeal, the question of the authority of Jansson, as agent for the Self-Winding Clock Company, to collect for it the amounts owing by the school districts for the installing of clocks and appliances, by the contention made in appellant's behalf that the trial court erred in refusing to sustain his counsel's motion, timely made, for judgments notwithstanding the verdicts, upon the ground that the evidence was such as to entitle him to judgments against respondents for the amounts claimed, as a matter of law. A review of this record convinces us that the facts upon which these verdicts and judgments rest are substantially the same as those upon which the former verdicts and judgments rested except certain evidence excluded upon the second trial in harmony with our decision rendered in reversing those judgments and awarding a new trial, and except certain evidence touching the manner of issuing the warrants to Jansson in payment of the clocks and appliances. Assuming for the present that the latter does not call for the reversal of these judgments, and that we have here for consideration only the question of Jansson's authority as agent of the clock company, to collect from respondents the amount owing by them for the clocks and appliances, at the time he received the warrants, we feel constrained to hold, as upon the former appeal, that the jury was warranted in finding, as it did in effect, that Jansson then had such apparent authority, and therefore such real authority, in so far as the rights of the appellant here involved are concerned. We deem it unnecessary to again review that question.

It is claimed by counsel for appellant, and we assume for argument's sake, that the issuance and delivery of the warrants to Jansson was attended by certain irregularities, from which they argue that respondents did not, in effect, pay Jansson, as agent of the clock company, until after they had notice that the clock company claimed he was not its agent for the purpose of collecting the amounts owing by them for the clocks and appliances, although at the time of the issuance of the warrants respondents may have acted in good faith in issuing and delivering the warrants to Jansson, upon the theory that he was then authorized to collect the amounts owing by them for the clocks and appliances. The warrants were issued and delivered to Jansson on December 9, 1911. They were not, prior to their delivery to him, presented to the county auditor for countersigning and registration, as provided by sections 4554, 4557-2, Rem. Code, which read:

'He [county auditor] shall countersign and register warrants for the payment of all teachers' salaries, supplies, apparatus, and accounts against the districts upon the written order of the majority of the members of the school board of each district.'

'He shall register in his own office, and present to the treasurer for registration in the office of the county treasurer, all warrants of the first and second class districts received from secretaries or clerks thereof before delivery of the same to claimants.'

Respondents appear to be school districts of the second class. A short time after receiving the warrants Jansson transferred them by blank indorsement and delivery to the Bank of Colville. They were about the same time presented either by...