Court Opinion

ID: 9636503
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:31:27.013085+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:46.505681
License: Public Domain

AUGUSTUS N. HAND, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part). . While I quite agree as to the affirmance of the judgment against Hercules Powder Company, I differ with the decision of the majority of the court in reversing as to Norwegian Nitrogen Products Company, Ine. A dissent may perhaps be thought futile, in view of the recent decision of this court in The Jungshoved (C. C. A.) 290 F. 733, and the New York Court of Appeals in Georgi v. Texas Co., 225 N. Y. 410, 122 N. E. 238. But, as I feel that the doctrine of election ought only to apply to a case where there has been both judgment and satisfaction, and that anything less than a complete satisfaction or an estoppel in pais affords no logical basis for barring a remedy against both agent and undisclosed principal, I must record my disagreement, even though it be a case of vox elamantis in deserto.
Here the intention not to abandon the claim against the principal is undisputable, and the decree against the agent Garrigues was only interlocutory and decreed no payment of damages by the latter. It was always, therefore, within the control of the court. In this respect it differed from the judgment in Georgi v. Texas Co., supra, which was final. In Beymer v. Bonsall, 79 Pa. 298, the court said: “The principal has no right to compel the creditor to elect his action, or to discharge either himself or his agent, but can defend his agent only by making satisfaction for him.” Professor Me-chem, in his article in 23 Harvard Law Review, at page 592, says this is “the sound and natural view.” See, also, Mechem, Agency (2d Ed.) § 1751.
So far as I can discover, the Supreme Court has not closed the question. In faet, that court said in Friederichsen v. Renard, 247 U. S. at page 213, 38 S. Ct. 452, 62 L. Ed. 1075, about the doctrine of election of remedies, as related to alternative causes of action against the same person, that it “is a harsh and now largely obsolete rule, the scope of which should not be extended.” This I believe to represent the general view of modem legal scholars and commentators as to the doctrine of election. By their.support, and the precedent of Beymer v. Bonsall, supra, I am emboldened to dissent.
The decree below should be affirmed, not only against Hercules Powder Company, but also against Norwegian Nitrogen Company, Ine.