general agency
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 76 U.S. 766 - Butler v. Maples · 1869Most cited · 51 citing opinions
Authority to make purchases from any persons with whom the agent may choose to deal, or to make an indefinite number of purchases, is a general agency. The distinction between the two kinds of agencies is that the one is created by power given to do acts of a class, and the other by power given to do individual acts only. Whether an agency is general or special is wholly independent of the question whether the power to act within the scope of the authority given is unrestricted, or whether it is restrained by instructions or conditions imposed by the principal relative to the mode of its exercise.
How often courts cite the case defining “general agency”
Court decisions citing the opinion that defined “general agency” — 51 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining case 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.