factor
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 52 U.S. 209 - John Warner Citizen of the State of Pennsylvania · 1850Most cited · 55 citing opinions
delegation
A factor cannot delegate his trust to his clerk. The law upon this point is well settled. ... An agent ordinarily, and without express authority, or a fair presumption of one, growing out of the particular transaction or the usage of trade, has not the power to employ a sub-agent to do the business, without the knowledge or consent of his principal. The agency is a personal trust for a ministerial purpose, and cannot be delegated; for the principal employs the agent from the opinion he has of his personal skill and integrity, and the latter has no right to turn his principal over to another, of whom he knows nothing.
How the Supreme Court has restated “factor”
Each Supreme Court definition of “factor,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “factor”
Court decisions citing the 2 opinions that defined “factor” — 60 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 3 definitions, chronological · 1790–1850
- ORIGINAL
such as the trader has a bare authority to sell, in the character of a factor, for the use of the principal, who employs him.
A factor or agent who has power to sell the produce of his principal has no power to affect the property by tortiously pledging it as a security or satisfaction for a debt of his own, and it is of no consequence that the pledgee is ignorant of the factor's not being the owner.
pledging principal's goods