San Pedro Lumber Co. v. Reynolds

Citations

• 111 Cal. 588
• 44 P. 309
• 1896 Cal. LEXIS 627

Syllabus

<p>Principal and Agent—Liability of Agent—Enforcement of Pledge —Action for Accounting—Sufficiency of Pleading.—A complaint in an action by a corporation against one who had acted as its agent, which shows that he had had entire control of its business at Los Angeles, and that by various acts of misconduct, specially described, he caused losses to the corporation and became liable to it in large sums of money, the true amount of which cannot be ascertained and determined without an accounting by the agent of the administration of his trust, and that he had transferred to the corporation certain property as security for any amount which might be found due and owing from him to the corporation, states a sufficient cause of action for the enforcement and foreclosure of the lien of the pledge and for an accounting in equity, as necessary to the determination of the amount for which the lien may be enforced.</p> <p>Id,—Averment of Acts of Misconduct—Demurrer—Misjoinder of Causes of Action—Uncertainty.—The action being for an accounting of his trust by an agent, touching matters peculiarly within his knowledge, the averments of numerous acts of misconduct by the agent, each causing loss to the principal, do not state separate causes of action, and the complaint is not demurrable for misjoinder of causes of action, nor for uncertainty in not stating more particularly how each item of alleged liability of the agent arose or when it was created or its precise amount; nor is the character of the complaint, as one for an accounting, changed by the averment that before the commencement of the action an investigation had shown that the corporation plaintiff had suffered a loss of upward of a specified sum.</p> <p>Id.—Insufficient Tender.-—A tender of a sum less than the amount found due is not available as a defense.</p>