Wadsworth v. Adams/Opinion of the Court

by by John Marshall Harlan

United States Supreme Court

138 U.S. 380

Wadsworth  v.  Adams

We cannot give our assent to the proposition that Adams, being a special agent only, was not guilty of a breach of duty in withholding from his principal information of the fact that McComb was willing to take the notes at a discount of 8 per cent. per annum, that is, for $380,000, provided he could not get them for $350,000. That fact came to his knowledge before he and McComb separated on the 27th of March, and good faith upon his part required that he should at once, with the utmost dispatch have communicated it to his principal, and not have permitted him pressed for money, as Adams knew him to be, and as he took care to inform McComb he was-to consider the offer of $350,000 in the belief that that was the highest price his agent could obtain for the notes. The agreement to pay the latter $10,000 if he negotiated a sale of them at a discount of 8 per cent. per annum was in consideration of his endeavoring to dispose of them upon those terms. It was a condition precedent to his right to such compensation that the services he undertook to render should be faithfully performed. If his principal had accepted the offer of $350,000, he would have lost $30,000 by reason of the concealment or the withholding by his agent of the fact that the party making the offer intended to accede to the principal's terms, if he could not do better. In effect, Adams abandoned the position of agent for De Bardeleben to negotiate the notes for a specified sum, and, practically, co-operated with McComb in the latter's effort to get them at a sum less than De Bardeleben had authorized the agent to accept. He conducted himself as if he were more interested in McComb than in his principal. We have seen that when he learned, on the 28th, by telegram from his principal, that McComb's offer of $350,000 was rejected, he immediately, on the same day, telegraphed from Philadelphia to De Bardeleben that he had negotiated the notes on the terms originally given him,-that is, for $380,000. As he testifies that he did not, after parting from McComb in New York in the afternoon of the 27th, see or have any communication with the latter in relation to the notes or their sale or purchase, it could not be true that he had, himself, on the 28th, or before being notified of the sale by De Bardeleben, negotiated a sale for $380,000, unless, as by McComb, it was understood between him and Adams, before they separated on the 27th, that McComb was to take the notes at $380,000 if his offer of $350,000 was not accepted by De Bardeleben. So that, for every substantial purpose involving the interests of the principal, the agent did precisely what he would have done if he had expressly and for compensation stipulated with McComb that, pending the latter's efforts, through the agent, to induce the principal to part with the notes for $350,000, he would conceal from his principal the fact that by remaining firm he could get $380,000 from McComb.

We cannot agree that such conduct upon the part of Adams was consistent with the duty he owed to his principal in virtue of his agency for the sale of the notes. He abused the confidence reposed in him, and thereby lost the right to claim the stipulated compensation of $10,000, or any other sum. Sea v. Carpenter, 16 Ohio, 412, 418, Story, Ag. § 331. He cannot complain of the sale to Ensley, for the reason, if there were no other, that his telegram of the 27th gave no intimation of his purpose to make further effort to negotiate the notes upon the terms originally given him. On the contrary, in view of all the circumstances, De Bardeleben might not unreasonably have supposed from that telegram that the offer of $350,000 was the highest that Adams could obtain, and that nothing better was to be expected from his efforts. Be that as it may, we are of opinion that Adams was not entitled to any compensation under the contract upon which he sues, and that the court should have so instructed the jury in accordance with the defendant's request. He is no more entitled to compensation than a broker will be entitled to commissions who, having undertaken to sell particular property for the best price that could be fairly obtained for it, becomes, without the knowledge of his principal, the agent of another to get it for him at the lowest possible price. The assumption of the latter position would be a fraud upon the vendor, who is entitled, in such cases, to the benefit of the diligence, zeal, and disinterested exertions of the agent in the execution of his employment. The law requires the strictest good faith upon the part of one occupying a relation of confidence to another. Kilbourn v. Sunderland, 130 U.S. 505, 519, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 594; Story, Ag. §§ 31, 211; Farnsworth v. Hemmer, 1 Allen, 494; Rice v. Wood, 113 Mass. 133; Scribner v. Collar, 40 Mich. 375, 378; Raisin v. Clark, 41 Md. 158; Lynch v. Fallon, 11 R. I. 311.

The judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion.

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