Lister v. Allen ex rel. Ratcliffe

Baiitol, C. «J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellee, plaintiff below, was entitled under the laws of the State, as widow of Richard Allen, late a soldier in the United States Army, to receive from the treasury the sum of $300 for bounty due the deceased. Her claim made out in due form of law, with the requisite affidavits and proof annexed, was placed by her for collection in the hands of William E. Hanson; and appended thereto was the following order or draft: “ $300 186-. “ The Treasurer of the State of Maryland pay to the order of William E. Hanson the sum of three hundred dollars, being balance of State bounty due me as the widow of Richard Allen, a volunteer in Company H, in 30th Regiment U. S. C. Troops. Under the Act of the General Assembly of Maryland of 1864, chap. 15, and amendments thereto.” her Witnessed by “Emeline + Allen.” mark. “Jos.

B. Ruth, J. P.” Evidence was offered to prove that Hanson paid nothing to the plaintiff for the claim, that the he passed it over to one ⁵⁴⁶ James Campbell, a bounty broker, but for what consideration does not appeal*. Campbell sold it to the appellants for $165, and they received the amount ($300) from the treasury. The object of the suit is to recover from them this sum, as money had and received for the use of the plaintiff! At the trial the defendants asked the Court to instruct the jury “ that if they found the defendants purchased the claim for bounty in question at a fair market price, without any collusion with Hanson or his agent, and paid their money for the same, then the plaintiff is not entitled to recover.” This prayer was refused, and the prayer of the plaintiff was granted, instructing the jury substantially, “ that if they believed from the evidence the plaintiff placed her claim in the hands of Hanson, a claim agent, with an understanding that the same should be collected| in the usual mode, and paid over to her; but without authority to sell the said claim; and that Hanson sold the same, or caused it to be sold, without her authority or consent, to the defendants, who afterwards collected the full amount from the State, then the plaintiff is entitled to recover said three hundred dollars with interest from the date of its payment.” The jury found a verdict in favor of the plaintiff; and the appeal brings up for review the ruling of the Court below, on the prayers.

The defendants claim exemption from liability, on the ground that they were bond fide purchasers of the claim for value. But the Court asserted the right of the plaintiff to recover, provided the jury found that Hanson was her agent only to collect, without any authority to sell, and if he sold without her knowledge or consent, the purchasers acquired no title as against her, although they may have acted in good faith. In support of this position we have been 'referred to ⁵⁴⁷ Chitty on Contracts, 200, and to Batty vs. Carswell, 2 Johns. 48 , and Rossiter vs. Rossiter, 8 Wend., 494 . These authorities announce the doctrine that the acts of a special agent do not bind his principal unless strictly within his authority.

Chitty states the' rule as follows: “If the agent is appointed only for a particular purpose, and is invested with limited powers, or, in other words, is a special agent, then it is the duty of persons dealing with such agent to ascertain the extent of his authority, and the principal or master will not be bound by any act of the agent not warranted expressly by, or by fair- and necessary implication from the terms of the authority delegated to him.” This general rule is correct; but in the application of it to cases affecting the rights of third persons, who have dealt with the agent in good faith, care must be taken not to bind them by limitations placed on the authority of the agent, by the private instructions of the principal, which are not known to such third persons; nor properly inferable from the nature of the agent’s employment. In Perkin’s note to the text of Chitty, above quoted, page 200, it is correctly said: “ A general authority arise» from a general employment in a specific capacity, such as factor, broker, attorney, &c.”.......“A general authority of this kind empowers the agent to bind the employee by all acts within the scope of his employment,, and that