Court Opinion

ID: 9885194
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 03:45:17.786025+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:46.293384
License: Public Domain

Powers, J.,

concurring:

In the opinion written by Judge Lowe for this Court in reversing the judgment of the Superior Court of Baltimore City, we have applied that aspect of the law of agency which permits a finding that a party, by its own acts, has made it reasonably appear to another that one with whom he deals is the agent of the party creating the appearance.
I concur fully with the opinion, as well as in the result. What the Court’s ruling in this case does is to hold that the *237evidence admitted at the trial was sufficient to permit a jury, properly instructed on the law, to find that the acts of B.P. Oil Corporation made it reasonably appear to Mr. Mabe that the individuals serving customers at the station here involved were agents of that Corporation. I see in the reasoning of the opinion no departure from long recognized principles of law.
Courts may judicially notice certain facts of common knowledge, but judges must be careful to avoid holding that their personal knowledge, especially of business affairs, is the equivalent of common knowledge by a public generally unsophisticated in the ways of business management. I doubt very much that the average individual would be able, with legal specificity, to name the other party to a contract by which he buys a hamburger, a tank of gasoline, a muffler for his car, or has his tax return prepared, or rents a car, or a motel room.
The reason is quite clear, and undoubtedly arises from sound and effective business judgment. With respect to countless products or services the message is broadcast far and wide: Buy our product (or use our service) at any of our many places of business. The identity projected is the name identity of the product or the service, to the virtual if not the absolute exclusion of all others.
When such a policy of identity promotion is successful, and a customer is attracted to a place of business by its identifying name, signs, or symbols, simple justice entitles the customer to show that from those appearances, he reasonably thought he was doing business with the company whose identity was so projected.