Brown v. Guaranty Securities Co.

265 S.W. 547
CourtTexas Commission of Appeals
DecidedOctober 29, 1924
DocketNo. 579-4045
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 265 S.W. 547 (Brown v. Guaranty Securities Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Texas Commission of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Brown v. Guaranty Securities Co., 265 S.W. 547 (Tex. Super. Ct. 1924).

Opinion

CHAPMAN, J.

On February 6, 1919, Mrs. M. Brown, of Fort Worth, purchased from G. O. Hall, who was doing business under the firm name of the Hall Motor Company at Fort Worth, an automobile for which she paid $400 cash and executed her nine notes in favor of Hall Motor Company for $28.75 each, the first due March 15, 1919, and one due on the 15th of each month thereafter, the last note being due November 15, 1919, bearing interest after maturity. The notes were dated at Fort Worth, Tex., and were not made payable a’t any particular place. Mrs. Brown executed, in favor of Hall Motor Company, a chattel mortgage on the automobile to secure the payment of the notes. Before the first note was due, Hall Motor Company indorsed the notes to Guaranty Securities Company of Dallas, and also transferred to them the mortgage given by Mrs. Brown to secure the payment of the notes. Mrs. Brown testified that, when the first note fell due, she had no notice that Hall Motor ■Company had transferred the notes to the Guaranty Securities Company, and that she did not receive such notice until after she had paid seven of the notes. She went to the office of the Hall Motor Company about the 15th of March, for the purpose of paying the first note, and paid it to Hall and received from him a receipt for the payment, but was informed by him that he did not have the note in his possession but would get it for her. About the 15th of April, Mrs. Brown again went to the office of Hall Motor Company and paid the April note and received the March note marked “Paid-Guaranty Securities Co.” Mrs. Brown was told by Hall that he did not have the April note, but would soon have it ready for her, and she got the April note when she went to pay the May note, and this arrangement was kept up and these payments made by Mrs. Brown to Hall Motor Company in this way, until she paid six of the notes. She also paid the seventh and eighth notes to Hall Motor Company, but never received the notes from him.

On receiving from Mrs. Brown payment of each of the first six notes, Hall would shortly thereafter send to the Guaranty Securities Company the principal of the note, and receive the note from the Securities Company marked “paid,” but he did not send to the Securities Company the money received by him from Mrs. Brown for the payment of the seventh and eighth notes. Mrs. Brown testified that about the 10th of October, she received a notice from the Guaranty Securities Company that the September note was unpaid and that the October note would be [548]*548due on the 15th of that month, and that about a week after receiving this notice she paid the' October note .at the office of Hall Motor Company and received a receipt therefor. She had already paid the September note at the office of Hall Motor Company before receiving this notice. About the 10th of November, Mrs. Brown received notice from the Securities Company that the September and October notes were unpaid and that the November note would be due on the 15th of that month, and shortly thereafter she went to Dallas to see the officers of the Securities Company, and then paid the November note and was notified again that the September and October notes were unpaid. Mrs. Brown did not pay the September and October notes, and the'Securities Company brought suit to collect these two notes and to foreclose the lien, and sequestrated the automobile. This suit was brought by Mrs. Brown against the Securities Company in the district court of Tarrant county for damages for wrongfully sequestrating her automobile. Upon special issues, the jury found that the writ of sequestration was wrongfully sued out and, under special issue No. 1, that G. O. Hall, who was doing business under the firm name of Hall Motor Company, collected and received the money on the first eight notes in question from Mrs. Brown for the Guaranty Securities Company with its knowledge and consent, and under special issue No. 4' found that the reasonable earnings of Mrs. Brown in her business with the use of her car over and above her expenses from the time the car was taken from her to the 1st of November, 1921, were $1,575. Judgment was rendered in favor of Mrs. Brown for this $1,575, together with $325, found to be the actual value of the car, and $50 exemplary damages.

The case was appealed to the Court of Civil Appeals at Texarkana (254 S. W. 240), and that court held that the facts were not sufficient to sustain the finding of agency on the part of Hall for the Securities Company in making the collection of the seventh and eighth notes, and the action of said court in so holding is now before us for review.

Defendant in error, Guaranty Securities Company, also takes the position that if the facts are sufficient to sustain the finding of agency, the question was not submitted to the jury, and was therefore waived by plaintiff in error, Mrs. Brown. This question of ostensible or implied agency is discussed by 7 Cyc. p. 1031, as follows:

“Express authority is not necessary to render payment to a person as agent effectual, but authority to receive payment may be implied from facts and circumstances existing prior to or in connection with the payment, and the holder of paper may be estopped to deny the authority of one whom he has clothed, intentionally or through negligence, with ostensible authority.”

And in 2 Corpus Juris, p. 435, as follows:

“The relation of agency does not depend upon an express appointment and acceptance thereof, but it may be, and frequently is, implied from the words and conduct of the parties and the circumstances of the particular case. ’ It may be implied from a single transaction, but it is more readily inferable from a series of transactions.”

And on x>age 443 of the same volume this language is used:

“An agency may also be implied from the recognition or acquiescence of the alleged principal as to acts done in his behalf by the alleged agent, especially if the agent has repeatedly been permitted to perform acts like the one in question.”

In Quinn v. Dresbach et ah, 75 Cal. 159, 162, 16 P. at page 763 (7 Am. St. Rep. 138), the Supreme Court of California speaks on this question as follows:

“The Civil Code provides that ‘ostensible authority is such as a principal, intentionally or by want of ordinary care, causes or allows a third person to believe the agent to possess.’ * * * And this is the embodiment of a well-established principle of the common law, which has been called ‘the foundation of the law of agency.’ ”

In Bradstreet Co. v. Robert Gill, 72 Tex. at page 115, 9 S. W. 753, 754 (2 L. R. A. 405, 13 Am. St. Rep. 768) our Supreme Court discusses agency in this way:

“The court refused a charge asked by defendant to the effect that if it was not the intention of defendant to make Finney its agent, and if it was not the intention of Finney to become its agent, to find for defendant on the plea in abatement. The refusal to give the charge is assigned as error. The intention of the parties, it is true, must control; but that intention is to be gathered from what was actually done or agreed by the parties, not from what they may have privately meant or supposed they meant. Agency or not is a question of law to be determined by the relations of the parties as they in fact exist under their agreements or acts. If relations exist which will constitute an agency it will be an agency whether the parties understood it to be or not. Their private intention will not affect it. It was not error to refuse the charge.”

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Bluebook (online)
265 S.W. 547, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/brown-v-guaranty-securities-co-texcommnapp-1924.