PRINCIPAL AND AGENT. In law an agent is a person authorized to do some act or acts on behalf of another, who is called his principal. The law regulating the relations of principal and agent is almost alike throughout the whole British empire, and differs only slightly from the law of the rest of Europe.
In a general view of the law of agency it is necessary to have regard to the rights and duties of the principal, the agent, and third persons with whom the agent deals. The agent should not do what he has no authority for ; yet as between the principal and those with whom the agent deals, the test of the principal's re sponsibility for what is done by the agent on his behalf, but in excess of his actual authority, is his ostensible authority.
Agents are of different kinds, according to the extent of their implied powers. The main restraint in the powers of an agent is in the old maxim, delegates non potest delegare, designed to check the complexity that might be created by enquiries into repeatedly deputed responsibility. As a general rule an agent cannot dele gate his authority or put another in his place; but this rule is sometimes modified, for it may arise from the nature of his em ployment or the necessity of the case that he has to employ other persons for the accomplishment of certain objects.
In the general case agency is constituted by the acceptance of the mandate or authority to act for the principal, and the evi dence of this may be either verbal or in writing. But an agent who has to execute a deed in the absence of the principal must be appointed by deed for that purpose. As a corporation aggregate can in general act only by deed its agent must be so appointed, except in the case of trading corporations and joint stock com panies, to which this rule has no application. Agency is often
constituted, at the same time that its extent is defined, by mere appointment to some known and recognized function—as where one is appointed agent for a banking establishment, factor for a merchant, broker, or traveller. In these cases usage defines the powers granted to the agent ; and the employer will not readily be subjected to obligations going beyond the usual functions of the office ; nor will third persons dealing with the agent be bound by private instructions inconsistent with its usual character. While, however, third persons, ignorant of such secret limitations, are not bound to respect them, the agent himself is liable for the conse quences of transgressing them. Agency may also be either created or enlarged by implication. What the agent has done with his principal's consent the person with whom he has dealt is justified in believing him to be authorized to continue doing.
In questions of this kind the distinction between a general and a special agent is important. A general agent is one em ployed to transact all his principal's business of a particular kind; as a factor to buy and sell ; a broker to negotiate contracts of a particular kind; a solicitor to transact his legal business; a ship master to do all things relating to the employment of a ship. Such an agent's power to do everything usual in the line of business in which he is employed is not limited by any private restriction or order unknown to the party with whom he is dealing. On the other hand, it is incumbent on the party dealing with a particular agent, i.e., one specially employed in a single transaction, to as certain the extent of his authority. As to a mercantile agent, see