Case ID: walker_4/html/0499-01.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

McMURROW’S APPEAL.
    A lease which is not in the name of the principal is not binding upon him.
    Appeal from Common Pleas No. 4 of Philadelphia County. No. 76, January Term, 1884.
    The Fidelity Insurance, Trust and Safe Deposit Company owned the premises 2010 North Broad Street, and sold the same to William S. Stokley by deed dated December 20, 1882.
    The plaintiff below, Wm. S. Stokley, on the 1st day of October, 1883, filed in the office of the Prothonotary of the Court of Common Pleas No. 4, a duplicate lease of premises 2010 North Broad Street, dated November 25, 1881, for the term of two years, from the Fidelity Insurance, Trust and Safe Deposit Company, as lessors, to John McMurrow (the appellant), as lessee; also, an affidavit that the term had that day expired, and that a notice to quit (a copy of which was annexed) had been served; also, an assignment of said lease from said lessor to William S. Stokley, dated August 23, 1883; also, an amicable action and confession of judgment in ejectment by virtue of the warrant of attorney, contained in the lease. On this judgment confessed, a writ of habere facias possessionem was issued the same day. Whereupon the appellant presented an affidavit, and obtained a rule to show cause why the execution should not be set aside, and the judgment opened.
    The affidavit of appellant contained averments that he was tenant under the Fidelity Insurance, Trust and Safe Deposit Company, by virtue of a lease for two years, from October 1, 1881, which was extended for one year thereafter by a new lease, from the same lessor, dated August 21, 1883. That he did not know the plaintff (Stokley) in the matter, and held under the title thus set up.
    The depositions showed that Stokley had notified the company not to re-let the premises on August 9th, 1883; and that McMurrow had acknowledge that Stokley had purchased the property. John L. Collins, an agent of the Fidelity Trust, Insurance and Safe Deposit Company, executed the lease with Me- ' Murrow on August 21, 1883, as agent for the company, but not as agent for Stokley.
    ■ The Court discharged the rule to open the judgment, which is the error assigned by McMurrow, who appealed.
    
      Hector F. Fenton, Esq., for appellant,
    argued that the principal was bound though the agent exceeded his authority,; Express Co. vs. Schlessinger, 75 Pa., 256; Saving Fund vs. Bank, 36 Pa., 498; Williams vs. Getty, 31 Pa., 461; ChouteauX vs. Leech, 18 Pa., 224.
    
      R. E. Shapley, Esq., contra,
    
    argued that to bind the principal the agent must execute the lease in the name of the principal; Heffernan vs. Addams, 7 Watts, 116; Bellas vs. Hays, 5 S. & R., 427.
   The Supreme- Court affirmed the decree of the Common Pleas on January 11th, 1884, in the following opinion:

Per Curiam.

The Cpurt committed no error in refusing to open this judgment. The person who made the lease to the appellant had no-authority from the appellee to do so. The latter was therefore not bound by his action. While a principal may be bound by an unauthorized act of his agent, within the general line or scope of the agency; yet that is not this case. The lease did not profess to be made in the name or on behalf of the appellee, who was the owner of the premises, and known to the appellant to be such. The fact that there was no omission to assign the-old lease to the appellee at the time of his purchase does not enlarge the equities of the appellant nor make the lease in question valid, which was otherwise invalid.

Decree affirmed and appeal dismissed at the cost of the appellant.