apparent authority
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 376 U.S. 483 - Stoner v. California · 1964Most cited · 2,951 citing opinions
the rights protected by the Fourth Amendment are not to be eroded by strained applications of the law of agency or by unrealistic doctrines of 'apparent authority.
How often courts cite the cases defining “apparent authority”
Court decisions citing the 2 opinions that defined “apparent authority” — 3,015 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 2 definitions, chronological · 1870–1964
- ORIGINAL
Where one, without objection, suffers another to do acts which proceed upon the ground of authority from him, or by his conduct adopts and sanctions such acts after they are done, he will be bound, although no previous authority exist, in all respects as if the requisite power had been given in the most formal manner. If he has justified the belief of a third party that the person assuming to be his agent was authorized to do what was done, it is no answer for him to say that no authority had been given, or that it did not reach so far, and that the third party had acted upon a mistaken conclusion. He is estopped to take refuge in such a defence.