Court Opinion

ID: 8034058
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-09 03:18:42.989361+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:37:04.038923
License: Public Domain

Howell, J.,
concurring.
My understanding of the principal facts in this case is: That Norton, appellee, owned a note secured by mortgage of the face and actual value of $10,200, plus earned interest at 7 per cent, from its date. Persons denominated in the opinion of Rose, J., as “swindlers” pretended to organize a so-called “trust company” to have $1,000,000 capital stock. One or more of them procured the note from Norton and hawked it about attempting, without success, to sell it, and they got in touch with one Maixner, the representative of appellant, who recognized the value of the note and agreed to buy it. The swindlers ostensibly were acting as agents for Norton. Maixner agreed to take the note, but insisted that it be indorsed by Norton. As between the swindlers and Maixner, the swindlers were selling the note for Norton. However, before paying the swindlers, Maixner required that Norton execute a receipt in which he was to acknowledge he had received $10,200 for the note. Norton understood the note was to be sold for cash, to be used to further the business of the trust company. The receipt did not recite the true consideration paid. Maixner knew that. After the indorsement of the note was procured from Norton and after he signed the receipt for the money to be paid, Maixner gave the swindlers, for the note, bonds of the value of $8,300, and issued directly to, in the name of, one of the swindlers, in payment of the remainder of the purchase price, stock of the Bankers Fire Insurance Company. Maixner. then knew that defendant was not paying cash for the note and mortgage, but, instead of making payments to Norton, who was *506to sign the receipt for the money, knowingly put a part of the purchase price in the name of one of the swindlers. In that transaction the swindler exceeded his authority as agent and Maixner knew it. He assisted the swindler in swindling Norton and was a party to the conversion of the note in so doing.
The transaction was not governed by the negotiable instruments act, but by the law governing ordinary conversion of personal property. The inevitable deductions to be drawn are that the Bankers Fire Insurance Company aided and abetted the swindlers in the conversion. Cook v. Monroe, 45 Neb. 355, lays down this rule:
“Under the usually adopted principle of law that he who intermeddles with personal property which is not his own must see to it that he is protected by the authority of one who is the owner or has authority to act, or that he will be himself liable; and that if he do an unlawful act, even at the command of another acting as principal, and without right, a liability will attach.”
That case was cited with approval in Starr v. Bankers Union of the World, 81 Neb. 377, 381, where it is said:
“Where several parties unite in an act which constitutes a wrong to another, under circumstances which fairly charge them with intending the consequences which follow, it is a very just and reasonable rule of the law which compels each to assume and bear the responsibility of misconduct of all. 1 Cooley, Torts (3d ed.) 153. Hence, it is held that one who aids and assists in a wrongful taking of chattels is liable for the conversion, though he acted as agent for a third person.”
The undisputed evidence charges the Bankers Fire Insurance Company, through Maixner, with knowledge of the wrong that was being done to Norton. In the opinion of Rose, J., it is said:
“Maixner, who conducted for defendant the negotiations resulting in the transfer and acceptance of plaintiff’s paper, testified in effect that he then had no knowledge of the fraud, and that in good faith he purchased and paid for it, *507and that in his negotiations he dealt alone with the agents of plaintiff who indorsed the paper and entrusted the wrongdoers with it. (Italics the writers.) Testimony by the holder of a note that he purchased it in good faith for value before maturity without knowledge that it was procured from the payee by the fraud of others may be overcome by circumstantial evidence to the contrary.”
Maixner was dealing with one whom he knew to be the agent of Norton, and was charged with knowledge of the powers ordinarily possessed by an agent authorized to sell his principal’s property. Unless otherwise shown, the sale could be made only for cash. The proceeds of such sale belonged to the principal. A sale made on terms beyond the authority of an agent is void (at least voidable) as to the purchaser who took with knowledge of the violation of the duties of the agent. The circumstances surrounding the purchase and the admitted knowledge of Maixner that he was negotiating with persons acting as Norton’s agents are sufficient to make the appellant liable in conversion.
It is not necessary to go further back and show that the insurance company had knowledge of any particular fraud which the swindlers had perpetrated upon Norton. The insurance company, through Maixner, aided the swindlers in getting into their names part of the proceeds which should have been paid in cash for the benefit of Norton. That was sufficient knowledge, in law, to compel further investigation by Maixner and the insurance company. There was not a single dollar of money paid for the note by the insurance company. This leads to the conclusion, as one of law, that the insurance company aided in the conversion of the note. It may be said that the trial court erred in giving the instruction defining “holder in due course,” and in telling the jury, in effect, that the transaction was controlled by the negotiable instruments act, as to burden of proof. We do not think this instruction was prejudicial error, because there is sufficient in the record to have required of the appellant further and additional explanations as to the part it took. In other words, the *508attempted explanations were, in law, no explanations, but rather confirm the belief that Maixner knew that Norton’s agents were taking unto themselves property other than money in payment for Norton’s note, and that Norton was not going to receive the stock issued to, and in the name of, one of the swindlers. It may be added that the instruction was more favorable to appellant than it was entitled to. The judgment should be affirmed.