| Pa. | Feb 23, 1880
delivered the opinion of the court, May 3d 1880.
The negotiations which resulted in obtaining from the plaintiff in error the mortgage in suit were conducted, on behalf of the insurance company, by Philip E. Coleman, its secretary. Although the mortgage was given in his name, and by him assigned to the company, it was not taken for himself, but for the benefit of the company which he represented in the transaction. It follows, therefore, that the company, in seeking to enforce a contract obtained through the agency of its executive officer for its own benefit, is bound by his acts affecting the validity of the contract.
It cannot be doubted that a mortgage executed in consideration of an agreement to compound a felony is void, and will not be enforced. Such was the nature of the defence sought to be interposed in this case; and the only question is whether the offers of testimony excluded by the court tended to prove that Albert Swope, the son of the plaintiff in error, fraudulently embezzled money of his employer, the insurance company, and thus committed the felony, punishable by sect. 107 of the Crimes’ Act, Purd. Dig. 345, pl. 152, and that the mortgage was executed and delivered in consideration of an agreement that he should not be prosecuted for the felony. If the testimony tended to prove these facts, it should have been received and submitted to the jury with instructions to find for the defendant if the facts were satisfactorily established.
The proposition covered by the first assignment was to prove in substance that the son had been accused of stealing from the company, and a demand that the father should execute the mortgage to secure the sum stolen, coupled with the threat that if it was not done, Albert would be arrested and sent to the penitentiary ; that the plaintiff in error, having at first declined to accede to the demand, was again urged by Coleman, who exhibited a paper containing a statement of the sums alleged to have been embezzled, and said: “ This is now §1300 that Albert has stolen, and I want to see if you are going to fix it up.” To which the father replied : “ I am unable ; I have no money and cannot raise any.” Whereupon Coleman said: “ Mortgage your property, and I’ll have it taken by the company, and if you do not we will have Albert arrested for his stealing and put him in the penitentiary.” The offer covered by the second assignment was to prove that Coleman said, on another occasion, “ that this stealing of Albert’s had to be made up to the company, and if ho (defendant below) did not come down immediately and give the mortgage spoken of, the company would at once arrest Albert and put him in the penitentiary.”
Judgment affirmed.