Bergner v. Bergner

Citations

• 219 Pa. 113
• 67 A. 999
• 1907 Pa. LEXIS 612

Syllabus

<p>Principal and agent — Purchase of stock — Compensation of agent— Continuance of the relation.</p> <p>Where a person offers himself as an agent for the purchase of stock of a corporation, and his offer is accepted, the fact that he is not to receive compensation from the principal, does not affect the relation of principal and agent.</p> <p>Where an agency has been once entered upon, except the contrary be shown, the law will presume that whatever was done in furtherance of the original scheme which the agency was created to effect, was done under and through the agency. The burden of showing that the relation was changed before or during the transaction, rests upon the party so affirming. »</p> <p>An agent to purchase cannot be allowed, except as his principal assents, to purchase for himself. He can acquire nothing by such adverse purchase, even though he contribute of his own means or credit to effect it; the product will belong to the principal exclusively.</p> <p>To relieve an agent from the duties and obligations which he has assumed as such, his renunciation of the agency must not only be positive and unequivocal, but it is essential that it be made known to the principal. An undisclosed purpose to renounce is without effect. As the intelligent assent of the parties is necessary to establish the relation, so its dissolution must rest upon the knowledge of both.</p> <p>Where a son without means of his own requests his mother to permit him to purchase in his own name with moneys provided by her, certain blocks of stock of a corporation in which the son is an official, and it appears that the stock is to be offered for sale at intervals, and that both parties know that the moneys of the mother will not be sufficient to purchase all of the stock, the son does not effectively renounce his agency by saying to his mother after her moneys are exhausted, that he is going out to do something for himself, and thereafter pledging with his own notes the stock previously