Court Opinion

ID: 9864498
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 13:36:27.171474+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:14:19.520555
License: Public Domain

THE COURT.
In its petition for rehearing herein the appellant complains that the opinion heretofore filed fails to refer to certain assignments of error made by appellant and particularly to the giving of certain instructions. Notwithstanding the fact that appellant wholly failed to comply with the provisions of section 953c of the Code of Civil Procedure and with rule 8 of the rules of the Supreme Court, we did consider the assignments made, but did not touch upon them as we considered them wholly without merit.
As to the instruction covering the law of ostensible agency, it is argued that under no circumstances can the doctrine of ostensible agency apply in an action for tort, and the cases of Barton v. Studebaker Corporation, 46 Cal. App. 707 [189 Pac. 1025], and Smith v. Belshaw, 89 Cal. 427 [26 Pac. 824], are cited as authority. Neither case supports the rule contended for. Both hold that, under the facts of the particular case considered, proof of ostensible agency was insufficient to fasten liability on the purported master. The rule applicable to the case at hand is fully stated in Donnelly v. San Francisco Bridge Co., 117 Cal. 417, 422 [49 Pac. 559], where the express provisions of section 2330 of the Civil Code are relied on for the holding that “No reason exists why the principal under an ostensible authority which through fault or negligence he has permitted, should be exonerated from liability for the torts of the ostensible agent, any more than would the principal in the case of án actual agency.”
In the case at hand Clark, Black and Friedman were all licensed as real estate salesmen at the request of and under the employment of the appellant herein. Their licenses were issued by the state real estate commissioner under the provisions of the act of 1919, Statutes of 1919, page 1252, and any attempt to create for them the status of independent contractor or broker would have been in violation of the penal provisions of that act. The jury, of course, was entitled to presume that none of the parties hereto had purposely committed a crime within the terms of that act. At *152the same time the jury was entitled to believe all the .testimony which showed unmistakably that up to the time of the trial the corporation held itself out as the broker having sole authority to make the sales, and that during the same time the corporation, as well as the agents, deliberately and purposely represented to the plaintiff and. to the prospective customers that these, parties were merely agents of the corporation, and that the corporation and it alone had sole authority to arrange for the sale of the lots and that all others acting or engaged in any capacity in connection with the sales or prospective sales of the lots were acting as the agents and employees of the corporation alone.
Complaint is also made of our failure to comment upon the instruction relating to the admission of the original answer ■ in - evidence. The point is that, the original complaint charged that the defendant corporation invited and solicited the plaintiff to view and inspect the properties for the purpose of offering them for sale. This allegation was admitted in the original answer filed by the corporation, but after the trial had progressed this appellant asked and obtained leave to file an amended answer in which this allegation was denied. In instructing the jury the trial judge advised them that they could take these facts into consideration in determining the question as to the relation of the parties defendant. The instruction is not as urged by appellant, an instruction that the original answer should be taken as an admission or confession of the facts pleaded in the complaint. The instruction as given means that the original answer may be treated as a declaration against interest to be taken with all other evidence in the case to determine the disputed question of fact—that of agency.
The petition for rehearing is denied.
A petition by appellants to have the cause heard in the Supreme Court, after judgment in the District Court of Appeal, was denied by the Supreme Court on December 5, 1929.
All the Justices concurred!