Pepper v. Cairns

Citations

• 133 Pa. 114
• 19 A. 336
• 1890 Pa. LEXIS 880

Syllabus

<p>1. Nothing is better settled than that the declarations of an alleged agent are not admissible as proof of his agency; so, the conversation of a conveyancer with a person applying to him in reference to obtaining a loan, when offered for the purpose of showing that in the transaction the conveyancer was acting on behalf of the lender, and not for the borrower, falls within this principle.</p> <p>(а) Cairns, desiring to borrow money upon a mortgage, for use in extinguishing existing encumbrances, applied to Ruhl, a conveyancer, for the purpose of getting it. Ruhl wrote to Sergeant, the trustee of several estates to whom he had previously brought applications for loans, stating the circumstances of Cairns’s application and inquiring, “shall I take it, and for whose Account ? ”</p> <p>(б) Sergeant agreed to take the mortgage for the Pepper estate. Cairns executed a mortgage and placed it in the hands of Ruhl, who delivered it to Sergeant and received the latter’s check for the amount of'the loan. Ruhl applied a part of the money in the extinguishment of one of the prior encumbrances against Cairns, but embezzled the remainder:</p> <p>2. In such case, Ruhl unquestionably was to some extent the agent of both the parties, but the facts do not show that he was acting in the capacity of agent for the Pepper estate in handling the money; nor was the act of Sergeant in paying the money to Ruhl, upon receiving the mortgage from him, negligence toward Cairns; wherefore, the embezzlement by Ruhl was not a defence to the mortgage.*</p>