Case Name: Wilkinson and others, Trustees of Neal, against Campbell
Court: South Carolina Court of Common Pleas
Jurisdiction: South Carolina
Decision Date: 1791-05
Citations: 1 Bay 169
Docket Number: 
Parties: Wilkinson and others, Trustees of Neal, against Campbell.
Judges: 
Reporter: South Carolina Law Reports
Volume: 1
Pages: 169–169

Head Matter:
Wilkinson and others, Trustees of Neal, against Campbell.
Where am auctioneer or factor deviates from the instructions of the principal; he is responsible in damages.
ASSUMPSIT for goods sold by defendant as an auctioneer, on account of plaintiffs. Wilkinson, Teasdale, and another, were trustees for Neal, and ordered the defendant, as an auctioneer, to dispose of his goods and effects on a credit of six months, taking security from the purchasers for the amount of their purchases. Campbell sold the goods, amounting to 206/. 12s. 9d. and took bonds with security for a part, and the rest he delivered to the different purchasers, -without security. When he closed his accounts with the agent of the trustees, Mr. Peppin, he paid about 80/. in cash, offered bonds with securities for about 40/. more, and the residue in open accounts against the purchasers | which Peppin, on behalf of the trustees, refused to receive. The question, therefore, was, whether, under these circumstances, the defendant washable or not?

Opinion:
Rutledge, Ch. J.
The trust between principal and factor, is a great and important one, especially in mercantile transactions : and were this court to permit factors to deviate from the instructions of their employers, there could be no such thing as confidence between them. Here there has been a clear and unwarrantable deviation, in the defendant's not taking the securities directed ; and also, in. refusing to deliver Peppin, the agent for the plaintiffs, the bonds he had taken with securities, unless he, Peppin, would receive the open accounts also, in full discharge of the transaction.