Case ID: ill-app_198/html/0352-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Presiding Justice McSurely", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Thomas C. Dolan, Defendant in Error, v. Harry A. Loker, Plaintiff in Error.
    Gen. No. 21,588.
    (Not to be reported in full.)
    Error to the Municipal Court of Chicago; the Hon. Joseph Z. Uhlir, Judge, presiding. Heard in this court at the October term, 1915.
    Affirmed.
    Opinion filed March 27, 1916.
    Statement of the Case.
    Action by Thomas C. Dolan, plaintiff, against Harry A. Loker, defendant, for rent. From a judgment in favor of plaintiff, defendant brings error.
    There was evidence that on February 25,1913, Jacob C. Paquet was the owner of an apartment building in Chicago, and on that date entered into a written lease with the defendant for an apartment, the term beginning May 1, 1913, and extending until April 30, 1914, the rent to be $'42.50 per month. Subsequently, in April, 1913, Paquet sold the property to plaintiff, Dolan, and Loker’s lease was assigned to plaintiff. J. M. McDonald appeared to have been acting as collector for Paquet, and he collected some rents for a short time after plaintiff became the owner of the building. Defendant said that on June 14, 1913, by agreement with plaintiff his lease was canceled and a new lease entered into expiring September 30, 1913, and as evidence of this he produced what purported to be a duplicate of the lease upon which judgment was entered, across the face of which is written these words: “Canceled.June 14, 1913, J. M. McDonald, Agent.” It was admitted that McDonald wrote this. Defendant also produced a memorandum which he himself had written, which is to the effect that the apartment had been leased to the defendant from July 1 to September 30, 1913, and upon this memorandum McDonald wrote his name. Plaintiff testified that he could read and write and that he never authorized McDonald or anybody else to make the notation of cancellation across the lease, that he did not see the paper prepared by defendant, nor McDonald write his name thereon, and that he never directed him to sign it. McDonald’s authority to act in the matter was denied by plaintiff.
    M. M. Hart and H. J. Rosenberg, for plaintiff in error.
    Frank P. McGinn, for defendant in error.
    
      
      See Illinois Notes Digest, Vols. XI to XV, and Cumulative Quarterly, same topic and section number.
    
   Mr. Presiding Justice McSurely

delivered the opinion of the court.

Abstract of the Decision.

Principal and agent, § 8 —when evidence sufficient to sustain finding that agent had no authority to cancel lease. In an action for rent, evidence held sufficient to sustain a finding that plaintiff’s agent had no authority to cancel lease of premises in question.