Case ID: ga_53/html/0618-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Teippe, Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

G. P. Guilford & Company, plaintiffs in error, vs. F. A. Stager, defendant in error.
    .1. The inference that an agent is authorized to collect a written security for a debt because it is in his custody, ceases when the security is withdrawn by the creditor; and tliis, even though the debt may have been contracted through the agent.
    
      :2. If the debtor pay such a claim to one who is not in possession of the security, it is incumbent on him to show that the person receiving payment had authority to collect the debt.
    Principal and agent. Debtor and creditor. Promissory .notes. Payment.' Before Judge Pottle. Hancock Superior Court. October Adjourned Term, 1873.
    
      Guilford & Company, through their agent, William Stanford, sold to Stacer a piano, stool and cover, taking his note therefor. This instrument was sent to plaintiffs. After its maturity they instituted suit thereon. The defendant pleaded payment in full to Stanford, the agent. The jury found for the defendant. The plaintiffs moved for a new trial, upon the ground that the .court refused to charge the jury ‘‘that if they believed that after the piano had been sold and the note ■given by Stacer to plaintiffs and turned over to them, that Stanford’s agency had ceased as to that transaction, and that defendant had such evidence before him as to induce him to believe it, you should find for the plaintiffs.”
    And also because, the court charged the jury, in substance, that the defendant was not liable if Stanford was a general agent, with power'to sell and to take money in payment for sales, which fact they must determine from the testimony. That if Stanford sold any other pianos and took pay in part, and afterwards, the principals in Macon, through their bookkeeper, received the balance of the debt without objection, they might consider that as a ratification of that act of Stanford, and they might look to that circumstance in determining whether he was such general agent.
    The motion was overruled, and plaintiffs excepted.
    E. F. Best, for plaintiffs in error.
    O. W. DuBose ; George F. Pierce, Jr., for defendant.
   Teippe, Judge.

This case comes fully within the decision rendered this term in Howard & Soule vs. G. L. Rice. The authorities therein cited establish the following positions : The inference that an agent is authorized to collect a written security for a debt because it is in his possession, ceases when the security is withdrawn by the creditor; and this even though the debt has been contracted through the agent.

If the debtor pay such a claim to one who has not the custody of the security, it is incumbent on him to show that the person receiving payment had authority to collect the debt. Under these principles, which largely control the case, the court should have granted the new trial.

Judgment reversed.