Interstate Securities Co. v. Third National Bank

Citations

• 35 Pa. Super. 277
• 1908 Pa. Super. LEXIS 24

Syllabus

<p>Corporations — Principal and agent — Agent’s authority — Duty of inquiry — Pledge of securities.</p> <p>The general rule as to agents of corporations, is that a corporate agent, like the agent of an individual, can make only such contracts as he is expressly authorized to make, or such contracts as pertain to the duties which the corporation imposes upon him.</p> <p>A person cannot retain negotiable securities which he accepts from an agent of a corporation, as a pledge for the debt of a third person, where it appears that he knew that the bonds were the property of the corporation, that it was his first transaction with the corporation, that he made no inquiry as to the authority of the agent, and that if he had made inquiry, he would have found that the action of the agent in pledging the securities was not only without authority, but in direct violation of it.</p>