Lehtinen v. Holpa

Citations

• 87 Wash. 284
• 151 P. 829
• 1915 Wash. LEXIS 921

Syllabus

<p>Principal and Agent—Liability for Fraud of Agent—Employment—Evidence—Question for Jury. Where defendant assumed to act as a broker in procuring business for an attorney, in consideration of a private arrangement whereby defendant received half of the attorney’s fees for procuring the business, it is for the jury to determine whether the attorney was the defendant’s agent for whose positive breach of trust in the premises the defendant would be liable; and in such a case a verdict for the plaintiff is sustained, where there was evidence to the effect that defendant introduced the attorney to the plaintiff, who was unable to speak English, as a competent man to represent plaintiff in forwarding a certificate of deposit for the payment of land, that defendant was present and advised such an indorsement of the certificate that, without plaintiff’s knowledge, it was payable to the attorney, who obtained its return and misappropriated the proceeds, and that defendant consulted with the attorney from time to time about it, and made the charge and collected the entire attorney’s fee for the work.</p> <p>Same—Liability for Fraud of Agent—Employment—Evidence —Admissibility—Res Gestae. In such a case, in which the defendant claimed that he was only employed as an interpreter between plaintiff and the attorney and assumed no other responsibility, the correspondence between the attorney and the bank, touching the efforts being made to perfect the title for which the money was sent, is inadmissible as corroborating the defendant’s claim that he was only an interpreter, where it is admitted that defendant had no knowledge of such correspondence; as the same was no part of the res gestae of the original transaction.</p> <p>Same—Liability fob Fbaud of Agent — Employment — Evidence —Matebiality. Such correspondence was not admissible to show that the money was actually sent to the bank for the purpose intended, since that was immaterial where the real issue was as to whether plain