
    Antoine K. Benesch, Resp’t, v. The John Hancock Mutual Life Ins. Co., App’lt.
    
    
      (New York Common Pleas,
    
    
      General Term,
    
    
      Filed December 1, 1890.)
    
    Master and servant—Authority op agent to employ.
    Plaintiff was invited to come to the office of defendant’s manager to obtain employment and on doing so was referred to one M., as its superintendent, who drew up a written paper for him to sign to be sent to the home office for approval, engaged him in the meantime and demanded and received from him a sum of money as security for faithful discharge of his duty. The manager’s authority to employ was restricted to cases where the applications were approved by the company. Held, that as between plaintiff and the manager, the latter’s apparent authority to employ persons was general, and that restrictions of such' authority not known by or communicated to the plaintiff would not relieve defendant from liability for services performed under such employment.
    Appeal from the judgment of the seventh district court in favor of the plaintiff for $130 and costs.
    
      A. G. Kvdlich, for resp’t; Langbein Bros. & Langbein, for app’lt.
    
      
       See 32 N. Y. State Rep., 73, 1137.
    
   Daly, Ch. J.

The defendant is a foreign corporation having an office at No. 28 Union square, in the city of New York, which is in charge of Mr. Hill, the manager for the defendant. The plaintiff seeking employment and seeing an advertisement in the Staats Zeitung, wrote to the said office and received a written reply, whereupon he called there and was received by the manager, Mr. Hill, who upon learning his business referred him to one Emil Miller as the “superintendent for Staten Island.” Miller entertained the application of plaintiff for employment, drew up a-written paper for him to sign to be sent to the home office for approval, engaged him in the meantime at a salary of ten dollars, per week' to solicit insurance for the company, and demanded from him $100 as security for the faithful discharge of his duty, which sum plaintiff paid into the said office.

Plaintiff worked six weeks in procuring applications for insurance in the company and received three weeks’ wages, being the sum of thirty dollars. His application was not sent to nor approved by the home office, and upon his failing to receive any further wages he brings this action to recover his $100 deposit and thirty dollars balance of salary due.

The claim is resisted by the company on the ground that the plaintiff was employed by Miller and not by the company; that Miller was merely an agent to solicit insurance and collect premiums, and had no authority to hire others; that Hill had no authority to hire agents except with the approval of the home office after written application submitted to it; that no person had authority to receive deposit of cash as security, the only security received by the company being a bond; that the application of plaintiff was never received by nor sent to the home office; that defendant had no knowledge of the employment of plaintiff. The justice before whom the cause was tried gave judgment for the plaintiff for the full amount claimed and the defendant appeals.

The judgment should be affirmed. The transaction through which the plaintiff was induced to part with his money and give his services to the company, under, as he believed, due employment by them, took place at the office of the company in Hew York, and, in effect, with the manager himself; for although all that Mr. Hill, the manager, did was to refer the plaintiff to Mr. Millei, yet as this was done with full knowledge of the plaintiff’s application for employment, and that he came to that office pursuant to an advertisement and a letter apparently issuing from it, whatever Miller did in respect of the plaintiff’s application was as much an act of Hill as if the latter personally transacted the whole business. The plaintiff having first applied to Hill and being referred by tne latter to Miller without any notice that Miller was acting on his own behalf, had a right to assume that Miller was acting for- Hill. Miller was an agent of the company with limited powers, which did not include the hiring of others, but the plaintiff dealt with him because referred to him by Hill, and the plaintiff’s right of recovery does not depend upon - Miller’s authority, but upon Hill’s.

Hill’s power to employ agents was, it seems, restricted by the company to receiving and forwarding written applications for employment and the hiring of such applicants as were thereafter approved by the company. The plaintiff, however, did not know of this limitation upon Hill’s authority. He knew that he had to sign a written application, and he did so; but whether Hill had power to employ him temporarily, pending the approval by the home office, and whether Hill had authority to accept and receive at the time of the application a cash deposit as security, he did not and could not know. All he knew was that he’ was invited to come to the office of the defendant’s manager to obtain employment ; that he went there pursuant to such invitation, and there found the manager, who referred him to another person who assumed to employ him in the regular course of business and set him to work. The case resembles, in its principal features, Cox v. The Albany Brewing Company, 31 N. Y. State Rep., 666.

There the plaintiff was employed for one year by one Gray, air agent of the corporation, who had no authority to hire men longer than a day at a time, but the court sustained a recovery upon the contract on the principle that, although a special agent with limited powers cannot bind the principal where he acts outside the scope of his authority, yet the rule is subject to the qualification that when an agent is entrusted to do a particular kind of business, he becomes as between the principal and parties dealing with him the general agent for the transaction of that business, and his acts as between his principal and strangers in that particular line will bind the principal, although he violates some private instruction given by his principal not known to the public. It was held that as Gray had authority to hire hands, such authority, as between defendant and strangers dealing with him in that line, would be general ’ unless the limitation or qualification of his authority was made known to persons whom he employed in the service of the defendant, and that as between the parties Gray was the ostensible agent of the defendant, and clothed with all power he assumed to exercise.

In this case" Hill, who was manager of the company, had authority to receive applications and to employ agents. It was not known to the plaintiff that the authority to employ did not exist until the company had approved the applications which Hill was authorized to receive. If Hill exceeded his authority, and employed persons pending the approval of the application, and they performed work for the company upon the conditions fixed by Hill, they are not to suffer because of the undisclosed limitations upon Hill’s authority. As between Hill and the plaintiff, his apparent authority was general.

In the case quoted, the general term of the third department (May, 1890) cites the language used in the opinion in 1 H. Y., 292: “ Incorporated companies whose business is necessarily conducted altogether by agents should be required at their peril to see to it that the officers and agents whom they employ not only know what their powers and duties are, but that they do not transcend their powers. How else are third persons to deal with them with any degree of safety,” and “ the public have no means of judging in a particular instance whether the officer is or is not within his prescribed limits.” And the court say, “ the plaintiff had a right to assume that the person at the office who assumed to employ laborers had authority to act in that capacity. And it' has been hfeld that a jury may presume the authority in such a case from an act apparently done in the usual course of business at the office of the company, without the evidence of actual knowledge on the part of the company or its directors, or of express ratification.”

The appellant contends in his brief that there is no proof that Hill was manager of the company, or that his office was the office of the company. This can hardly be seriously argued in the face of Hill’s repeated and uncontradicted testimony that he was manager of the company, and in view of the fact that the defendant called him as its own witness to show the course of business at the office, the restrictions upon his authority imposed by the defendant, etc. It was further proved that a cash deposit had been received at the office, and apparently with the knowledge of Hill in a previous case, and that other persons had been employed as the plaintiff had been and had made deposits and had been paid wages at the office.

Hone of the authorities on the question of agency conflicted with the cases cited and relied upon, and none of the exceptions call for reversal.

The judgment should be affirmed.

Judgment affirmed, with costs.

Biscboff and Pryor, JJ., concur.  