Clark v. Smith

Decided January 15, 1878

Illinois Supreme Court · decided 1878-01-15

; the Hon. Lyman Lacey, Judge, presiding. This was an action of assumpsit, by the appellant against the appellee, to recover the price for a bill of goods sold by the appellant to the appellee. The defense was, payment to Richards, the appellant’s agent, at the time he ordered the goods.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1878-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently December 1917

12 state decisions

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.

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Mr. Justice Dickey

¶1delivered the opinion of the Court:

¶2The majority of the court are of the opinion that the proof in this record not only fails to show that Richards had authority to collect for Clark, but also think there is not evidence sufficient to support the proposition that Clark held Richards out to Smith as having such authority. While, perhaps, power to make contracts for the sale of goods upon a credit may be inferred from the letter of July 2, 1874, yet there is nothing in the letter from which authority to receive money in payment can properly be inferred. The verdict is not supported by the proofs, and the exception to the ruling of the court in refusing a new trial was well taken.

¶3The judgment must be reversed, and the cause remanded for a new trial.

¶4Judgment reversed.