Benema v. Union Cent. Life Ins. Co‪.‬

Contract of Employment ? Principal and Agent ? Special Agents ? Authority ? Duty of Person Dealing With Special Agent ? New Trial ? Hearing of Motion ? Continuance ? When Time Limit of Thirty Days not Controlling. Appeal ? New Trial Order ? Since Enactment of Chapter 87, Laws of 1929, Doing Away With Appeal from New Trial Order, Questions Reviewable on Appeal from Order Now Reviewable on Appeal from Judgment ? Extent of Review of Evidence. 1. Since the enactment of Chapter 87, Laws of 1929, providing, inter alia, that all questions formerly raised by an appeal from a new trial order are reviewable on appeal from the judgment, the rule announced in Hanlon v. Manger, 85 Mont. 31, 277 P. 433, that in the absence of a motion for a new trial, the supreme court on appeal in which insufficiency of the evidence to support the judgment is urged, is limited to a determination of the question whether there is any substantial evidence to support the judgment, is no longer controlling. New Trial ? Continuance of Hearing on Motion ? When Time Limit of Thirty Days not Controlling. 2. The time limit of thirty days for which, under section 9400, Revised Codes, hearing of a motion for new trial may be continued, is not controlling where the trial judge, disqualified by affidavit from hearing it, is unable within that time to secure a judge of another district to preside at the hearing. Principal and Agent ? Party Dealing With Special Agent must Ascertain Extent of Latters Authority. 3. A person dealing with a special agent must at his peril ascertain the extent of the agents authority. Same ? Contract of Employment by Special Agent ? Absence of Evidence of Extent of Agents Authority ? Directed Verdict for Defendant Principal Proper. 4. In an action to recover for labor performed on buildings situated on property owned by an insurance company and sold on time payments to one R. with the stipulation that the vendor would make repairs on the buildings in a certain amount, plaintiff dealt with the vendee, the latter testifying that he employed plaintiff with the approval of the companys agents. The contract of sale provided that there should be no modification thereof except by an instrument in writing executed by all parties. Held, that the vendee R. was at most a special agent, and that in the absence of evidence showing that the companys agents had authority to empower R. to employ plaintiff at an expense in - Page 139 excess of that allowed by the contract of sale, the trial court erred in refusing to direct a verdict in favor of defendant company. Same ? Authority of Agent ? Presumption ? What Agent may not Do Without Knowledge or Approval of Principal. 5. Presumptively an agent is employed to make contracts, not to rescind or modify them; to acquire interests, not to give them up; power to vary or cancel an agreement is not to be inferred from a general power to make it; he has no power to waive or give up rights or interests for his principal, or to increase the latters obligations and liabilities, unless the principal knows of or approves of such modifications by the agent.