Wolf & Marks v. Kahn

Citations

• 62 Miss. 814

Syllabus

<p>1. Business Sign. Not conclusive as to ownership of goods. Section 1300, Code 1880.</p> <p>The name on a business sign on the front of a house in which a mercantile business is conducted does not per se fix conclusively the ownership of the goods in him whose name appears on the sign, and make them liable for his debts, under $ 1300 of the Code of 1880, which provides that “ if any person shall transact business as a trader or otherwise, with the addition of the words ‘ agent,’ ‘ factor,’ ‘ and Company,’ or ‘ and Co.,’ or like words, and fail to disclose the name of his principal or partner by a sign in letters easy to be read, placed conspicuously at the house where such business is'transacted, or if any person shall transact business in his own name without any such addition, all the property, stock, money, and choses in action used or acquired in such business shall, as to the creditors of any such person, be liable for his debts, and be in all respects treated in favor of his creditors, as his property.”</p> <p>2. Same. Business conducted by one for secret benefit of another. Liability of goods. Section 1300, Code 1880. Case in judgment.</p> <p>M., a merchant, sold, conveyed, and delivered possession of his stock of goods and storehouse to his clerk, L. The conveyance was recorded two days afterward. The business was continued in the same storehouse and under the same sign. It was conducted by M. and L. afterward just as before the sale, apparently, and there was nothing to indicate that the former clerk had become owner and the former owner clerk, but, so far as the public could know from appearances, M. was still the owner of the business and L. still his clerk. The fact of the sale and transfer was known to only two persons besides the parties, and five days after it took place certain creditors of M., being in ignorance thereof, attached the goods as his. Held, upon these facts, and admitting the validity of the transfer of the goods, that M. was transact