86 N.J.L. 618 | N.J. | 1914
The opinion of the court- was delivered by
This suit was brought to recover the difference between the price at which the defendant company is alleged to have agreed to install a sprinkling system for the plaintiff and the cost of the same to the plaintiff after the defendant had refused to perform.
The case turned on the power of the defendant’s agent to execute the contract.
The learned trial judge, being of the opinion that- there urns no evidence from which such power could be inferred, granted the motion to nonsuit and the plaintiff appeals.
We are of the opinion that the nonsuit was erroneous.
The evidence of the plaintiff at the trial would have justified the jury, if they saw fit, in finding the following matters of fact:
The plaintiff company, desiring to equip their factory with an automatic sprinkling system, invited the defendant (and others) to hid on the same. The letter of invitation enclosed a blue print showing the general lay-out of the factory, and, as the object of the installation was to procure reduced rates of insurance, the lei ter specified that the work should he done according to the rules of the Manufacturers Mutual Fire Insurance Company, and should meet the approval of that company and the Newark board of underwriters. The defendant corporation replied by two letters, one o I: which proposed to do the work as required by the Newark hoard for $6,228, and the
We have reached the conclusion that the nonsuit was erroneous without reference to the contention of the plaintiff' that the evidence tended to show actual authority. That is not the limit of the agent’s power to hind his principal. •
As between the principal and third persons the true limit of the agent’s power to bind the principal is the apparent authority with which the agent is invested. The principal is bound by the acts of the agent within the apparent authority which he knowingly permits the agent to assume, or which he lipids the agent out to the public as possessing. And the reason is that to permit the principal to dispute the authority of the agent in such cases would he to enable him to commit a fraud upon innocent persons. Law v. Stokes, 32 N. J. L. 249.
The question in every such case is whether the principal has by his voluntary act placed the agent in such a situation that a person of ordinary prudence, conversant with business usages, and the nature of the particular business, is justified in presuming that such agent has authority to perform the particular act in question, and when the party relying upon such apparent authority presents evidence which would justify a finding in his favor, lie is entitled to have the question submitted to the jury.
In the present case, the defendant company was selling a special product at a varying price, not a staple product at a fixed price. They were selling work and material and skill and experience, and all this was to he embodied in a contract. They knew that they were meeting keen competition, and that their proposal must be modified in order to get the contract. The very nature of the contract and of the negotiations required an agent familiar with the defendant’s business and able to figure upon the work. It is undisputed that, when invited to figure on this work, they sent Bechtold to the plaintiff to discuss and negotiate the contract. They held him out to the plaintiff as their "contracting agent,” and the plaintiff knew that he commonly made such contracts for the defend
The judgment below will he reversed and a venire de novo awarded.
For affirmance — None.
For reversal — Ti-ie Chancellor, Chtee Justice, Garrison, $WAYZE, TRENCHARD, PiRKEIi, BERGEN, MlNTURN, Kalisch, Black, Bogert, Vredenburgi-i, Heppenheimer, Williams, JJ. 14.