84 Ga. 714 | Ga. | 1890
There was no dispute or controversy as to the facts. Their legal significance, nothing else, was for determination, the parties having agreed that the only question should be whether the contract could be terminated before October 1st by the notice of December 15th, 1886. The presiding judge decided this question in the negative, and directed a verdict accordingly. The notice referred to, dated December 15th, 1886, was m these terms : “Owing to the present low prices of oil,
Thus far we have dealt with the question without any special reference to the law of agency as distinguished from that of master and servant generally. This was a commercial agency, comprehending not only personal services, but the use of a wharf for landing oil and of a warehouse for storing it, Mid attended with a guaranty of the proceeds of all sales, the agents being obliged to pay within ten days for the oil sold in each month. The agents, if not del credere agents technically, were upon the same footing as such; they had to pay for all the goods they sold. No doubt the power of revoking the agency pending a current year’s business existed, but the right to revoke it without sufficient cause did not exist; and a wrongful revocation leaves the principal liable to make reparation to the agent. Mech. on Agency, §§209, 614, 620, 621; Code, §2183. Here no cause was assigned but the low price of oil and the prospect of its continuance. Neither of the parties had retired, or so far as appears, wished to withdraw from business; and according to the evidence, fifteen days’ notice would be too short a time within which to make arrangements with other dealers for oil; to do that would require several months. "We can see nothing whatever in the record to justify a revocation of the agency by such a notice as was given, and we agree with the presiding judge in the opinion that the oil company had no legal right to terminate the contract