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184 Conn. 581

Murphy v. Dell Corp.

Supreme Court of Connecticut

Decided July 7, 1981

Supreme Court of Connecticut · decided 1981-07-07

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“The law is settled that where an agent contracts in his own name, without disclosing his representative capacity, the agent is personally liable on the contract.”

quoted by 6 later decisions, including Dornfried v. Granquist, No. Cv00-0502628s (Mar. 13, 2001), Cucuel v. Fayed, No. Cv 94 315420 (Feb. 28, 1997)

Relies on Pandolphe's Auto Parts, Inc. v. Town of Manchester · Stelco Industries, Inc. v. Cohen · Diamond Match Co. v. Crute

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1981-07-07

How this case has been cited

Cited by 27 later decisions — most recently July 2013 · most notably 1 Conn. App. 680 - New England Whalers Hockey Club v. Nair (1984), Behlman v. Universal Travel Agency, Inc. (1985)

2 district · 25 state decisions

1001981199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Per Curiam.

¶1The defendant Robert J. DeLisa has appealed from a judgment holding him personally liable for goods and services provided on an oral contract with the plaintiff Eugene Murphy. DeLisa claims that the trial court erred in failing to find that the plaintiff had notice that the contract was with a corporation, the Dell Corporation.1 The trial court held that the defendant failed to disclose his claimed representative capacity to the plaintiff, and, therefore, the defendant was personally liable for the balance due on the contract.

¶2The law is settled that where an agent contracts in his own name, without disclosing his representative capacity, the agent is personally liable on the contract. Diamond Match Co. v. Crute, 145 Conn. 277, 279, 141 A.2d 247 (1958); Caliendo v. Catania, 127 Conn. 66, 70, 14 A.2d 752 (1940); Frederich Raff Co. v. Goeben, 116 Conn. 83, 85, 163 A. 462 (1932); Pierce v. Johnson, 34 Conn. 274, 275 (1867); 1 Mechem, A Treatise on the Law of Agency (2d Ed. 1914) -§1410; 2 Restatement (Second), Agency § 322. This proposition recently has been reaffirmed by this court in Klepp Wood Flooring Corporation v. Butterfield, 176 Conn. 528, 532-33, 409 A.2d 1017 (1979).

¶3Whether the status of the Dell Corporation as principal was undisclosed to Murphy so that he might hold DeLisa personally liable on the contract is a question of fact. Klepp Wood Flooring Corpo*583ration v. Butterfield, supra;Diamond Match Co. v. Crute, supra;Frederick Raff Co. v. Goeben, supra. The trial court decided that question of fact in favor of the plaintiff Murphy. It is the function of the trial court to weigh the evidence and judge the credibility of the witnesses. This court cannot find facts. Our role is to decide whether the decision of the trial court is “clearly erroneous in view of the evidence and pleadings in the whole record.” Practice Book § 3060D. See Stelco Industries, Inc. v. Cohen, 182 Conn. 561, 564, 438 A.2d 759 (1980); Pandolphe’s Auto Parts, Inc. v. Manchester, 181 Conn. 217, 221-22, 435 A.2d 24 (1980). We find that the decision of the trial court is not clearly erroneous.

¶4There is no error.

¶5 This action was originally brought by the plaintiff against the Dell Corporation and Robert J. DeLisa; however, the plaintiff withdrew his action as to the Dell Corporation.

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