Case ID: pa_221/html/0141-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Rahn Township School District, Appellant, v. Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company.
    
      Equity — Findings of fact — Conclusiveness of findings — Principal and agent — Review—Appeals.
    On a bill in equity for an accounting of money alleged to have been received by the defendant for the plaintiff, a finding of fact that the person who actually received the money was not an agent of the defendant and had no authority, expressly or by implication, to receive it, will not be set aside by the Supreme Court, where such finding is based upon sufficient evidence, and there is no manifest error.
    Argued Feb. 19, 1908.
    May 4, 1908 :
    Appeal, No. 385, Jan. T., 1908, by plaintiff, from decree of C. P. Schuylkill Co., May T., 1905, No. 2, in equity, dismissing bill in equity in case of Rahn Township School District v. Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company.
    Before Mitchell, C. J., Fell, Mestrezat, Pother and Elkin, JJ,
    Affirmed.
    Bill in equity for an accounting. Before Marr, J.
    From the record it appeared that the plaintiff claimed that the defendant had received certain sums of money arising from granting licenses, that these moneys belonged to the plaintiff, and hád not been paid over. The court found as a fact that the payments had been made to Fergus G. Farquhar, who, although local attorney for defendant, had no authority, either expressly or by implication, to receive the moneys, and that Farquhar had retained such moneys and appropriated them to his own use'. The court dismissed the bill.
    
      Error assigned was decree of the court dismissing the bill.
    
      J. O. Ulrich, with him L. C. Scott, for appellant.
    
      Abraham M. Beitler and Geo. M. Hoads, with them W. G. Thomas, for appellee.
   Per Curiam,

It does not appear that complainant’s right to the money.in question is disputed as a matter of law, but there is full denial sustained by the court, that defendant ever received it. The question turned on whether Farquhar, who actually receivéd the money, did so as attorney for defendant, or in some other capacity. The court found that Farquhar had no authority, in fact, to receive it, nor did he occupy any such professional relation to defendant as to raise an implication of such authority. The evidence was carefully examined by the learned judge, the facts clearly found, and the conclusions accurately drawn. ¥e see no reason to disturb them. Decree affirmed.