When a person who purports to act as an agent is not in a position to say to his principal, ‘I have been acting as your agent, and I have done my duty by you,’ he is not entitled to recover any commission from that principal.
Bramwell B said: ‘It is true that . . the defendant has had the benefit (if it be one) of the plaintiff’s services. But the defendant is in a position to say, ‘What you have done has been done as a volunteer, and does not come within the line of your duties as agent.” And in the same case Martin B. quoted the passage from Story on Agency, where it is said: ‘In this connection, also, it seems proper to state another rule, in regard to the duties of agents, which is of general application, and that is, that, in matters touching the agency, agents cannot act so as to bind their principals, where they have an adverse interest in themselves. This rule is founded upon the plain and obvious consideration, that the principal bargains, in the employment, for the exercise of the disinterested skill, diligence, and zeal of the agent, for his own exclusive benefit. It is a confidence necessarily reposed in the agent, that he will act with a sole regard to the interests of his principal, as far as he lawfully may; and even if impartiality could possibly be presumed on the part of an agent, where his own interests were concerned, that is not what the principal bargains for; and in many cases, it is the very last thing which would advance his interests. The seller of an estate must be presumed to be desirous of obtaining as high a price as can fairly be obtained therefor; and the purchaser must equally be presumed to desire to buy it for as low a price as he may.’
Judges:
Bramwell B
Citations:
[1865] EngR 365, (1865) 3 H and C 639, (1865) 159 ER 682
Links:
Cited by:
Cited – Imageview Management Ltd v Jack CA 13-Feb-2009
The appellant company acted for the respondent footballer in placing him with a football club. The respondent said that he had also taken a payment from the club, nominally for arranging a work permit. The respondent said this was improper. The . .
Applied – Andrews v Ramsay 1903
The plaintiff asked the defendant estate agents to find a purchaser for his property at a price of pounds 2,500 and if one such was found the agents’ fee would be pounds 50. A purchaser, one Clutterbuck, at pounds 2,100 was found. He paid the agents . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Agency
Updated: 12 April 2022; Ref: scu.281277