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99 Mass. 617

Bell v. Smith

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided September 15, 1868

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1868-09-15

<p>The usage of a trader to withhold from his agents authority to sell goods on credit is immaterial, and so inadmissible, on the question whether he specially conferred such authority upon an agent who admits that it was not contained in his original contract of agency.</p> <p>In an action by an agent against his principals for wages for services rendered under a contract terminated by them, evidence that, on terminating it, they credited him on theit ledger for the full amount of his stipulated wages up to that time, is competent to prove that they waived any claim to a forfeiture thereof; although the entry on the ledger was made without his knowledge.</p>

Cited by 1 later decisions — most recently May 1926

1 state decisions

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1868-09-15

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Chapman, C. J.

¶1The plaintiff having admitted at the trial that he was not authorized to trust out goods at the risk of the defendants under his original contract with them, and that he relied wholly upon a special authority given to him at a subsequent time, the usage of the defendants respecting their contracts for hiring peddlers was immaterial. No proof of usage in making contracts with others could strengthen the admitted fact, that in their original contract with the plaintiff they withheld the authority from him. .And the usage did not apply to the special contract which he attempted to prove was made afterwards.

¶2If the plaintiff wrongfully refused to perform his written contract to peddle for the defendants for a stipulated time, he thereby gave to the defendants the right to terminate the contract. It appears that they did this on the 2d of May 1867, and on the same day credited the plaintiff on their ledger with his labor up to that time. Giving this credit was an act of the defendants tending to show that they waived any claim they might have to a forfeiture of his wages for past services. It was not a mere mental act, but an entry that changed the actual state of their account with him. Though they did not make the act known to him at the time, yet they did so afterwards, when they brought the book into court and used it at the trial. The court ruled correctly, that it was competent evidence to prove a waiver of the forfeiture on their part. Exceptions overruled.

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