3 Barb. 529 | N.Y. Sup. Ct. | 1848
By the Court,
It cannot be maintained that F. C. Dillaye was responsible upon the undertaking of his brother to collect the plaintiff’s note, and account for the moneys collected. It is true that the proposition to collect the note was signed in the name of the copartnership firm; but it is equally true that the transaction occurred a year after the partnership was dissolved, and after the plaintiff must have had notice of the dissolution. He was a neighboring merchant in a small village, and the notice, given in the manner stated by Birdsall, must have reached him. Besides, the plaintiff’s knowledge of the dissolution was proved by his own witness, Farrington, Again; it was offered to be proved by showing that Farrington, his clerk and agent, who, in his behalf, parted with the note on the proposition to receive and collect it, was aware of the dissolution when he placed the note in the' hands of H. A. Dil-laye. This offer was erroneously rejected; for the knowledge of the agent is the knowledge of the principal. And for this reason alone the judgment of the justice was properly reversed. (2 Hill, 464. Jeffrey v. Bigelow, 13 Wend. 518.) I assume, however, for the purpose of this argument, that the plaintiff had knowledge of the dissolution: and then it seems to me clear, 1st. That H. A. Dillaye had no right after the partnership was dissolved, to bind his late copartner, by an agreement to collect
The process iti this case was served oil F. C. Dillaye only. 'This would seem, therefore, to be an attempt to collect of him a demand which was the proper debt of his brother to pay; and
There was another error which appears to-us to present an unquestionable ground for reversing the judgment of the justice; and that consists in permitting the witness, Coats, to testify to the contents of a judgment record, notwithstanding an objection duly made.
Upon the whole, we think that the judgment of the common pleas should be affirmed.