Court Opinion

ID: 9740318
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:32:21.925116+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:17.420736
License: Public Domain

BOEHM, Justice,
concurring.
I agree with the Court’s analysis of the appropriate rules of agency law. I also believe that the case can be resolved by a somewhat simpler analysis.
Dolin, the middleman, perpetrated a fraud on both parties. Both parties were entirely innocent, at least until the goods arrived at Hires’ loading dock with indications that they came from Oil Supply, not from Dolin, and perhaps thereafter as well. Under these circumstances, each party should be able to rescind the transaction as based on fraud and perhaps also mutual mistake of fact. If that were done, the goods would remain the property of Oil Supply and both Oil Supply and Hires would be left with their preexisting uncol-lectable debts from Dolin.
If, as turned out to be the case, the transaction stands, value has been given and received on both sides. Wittingly or not, Hires chose to keep the goods and received value from Oil Supply for which Hires should pay. I see no reason why this transaction should shift the preexisting losses from one innocent party to another. That is the result reached in the trial court and the Court of Appeals by permitting Hires to wipe out its bad receivable from Dolin at Oil Supply’s expense. I therefore reach the same result as the majority for that reason as well.
DICKSON, J., concurs.