Penn. Natural Gas Co. v. Cook

Citations

• 123 Pa. 170
• 23 W.N.C. 52
• 16 A. 762
• 1889 Pa. LEXIS 642

Syllabus

<p>(a.) A natural gas company, incorporated under the act of May 29, 1885, P. L. 29, with another such company as surety, and without an order of court, gave a bond for permission to enter on lands and lay a gas line.</p> <p>(5.) The bond was executed in the names of the companies, one by the general manager, the other by the president, without the corporate seals, but with scroll seals to the signatures.</p> <p>(c.) The condition was, that the obligors should pay “all damages of whatsoever nature and kind that may be suffered or sustained” by the obligee from the construction and repairs of the line, payable forthwith on the completion of the construction and the repairs.</p> <p>1. In such case, by giving the bond the constructing company recognized the obligee’s title and his right to damages, and he might proceed directly upon the bond without a previous assessment by viewers, under the incorporating act.</p> <p>2. An objection to the bond for defective execution made after it had been admitted in evidence and after the plaintiff had closed his ease, came too late, the only remedy then being a motion to strike the offer from the record.</p> <p>3. The signature of the agent of a corporation executing an instrument in its behalf, being proved, a common seal will be presumed to have been intended as the seal of the corporation, in the absence of competent evidence to the contrary.</p> <p>4. Moreover, even if the agents exceeded their powers, the companies might not avail themselves of the benefit of the bond, and at the same time disavow their agents’ authority.</p> <p>5. Under the provisions of the bond, the obligee was entitled to recover damages not only for injuries directly occasioned, but for consequential injuries in a loss of local trade resulting in the enforced removal of his business.</p>