that business, and dissolving their principal. If this limit of their agency were not the measure of their power, every one who becomes a member of a partnership, incorporated or unincorporated, in a business specifically defined and limited by the partnership contract, would thereby authorize a majority of the company (with a legislative waiver of public objection) to carry off his investment into all other business within the ranlge of human capacity; and every one who employs an agent in any business for any purpose, however restricted by the contract of employment, would thereby empower him to bind the principal by any contract the principal could make in any other business for any other purpose.
When A employs B and C as his general agents in the cultivation and management of his farm (No. I), he gives them an implied power to do what is necessary for exercising the authority expressly granted. They cannot sell the farm.[1] Their sale of it, compelling their principal to abandon the work he employs them to do, would not be a performance of that work. Evidence that his agriculture is unprofitable, or that, for any reason, a change of the investment would be judicious, would not prove their power of sale. Ihis discontinuance of his farming business is a question he does not submit to them for decision. They cannot sell and convey the farm for ninety-nine years, or for the shorter term of his natural life. Their general authority to carry it on for him, as his agents, is neither a power of excluding him, his heirs and assigns, forever from the business of a principal in carrying it on, nor a power of ousting three generations of owners. By making a lease, his agents would attempt to change his vocation from that of a farmer to that of a landlord. Employed by him in the cultivation of the soil, they would assume to embark him in a different business. A lease for ninety-nine years might be more embarrassing and disabling than a sale. With the cash proceeds of a sale, he could buy another farm which he might not be able to obtain in exchange for a right to collect rent. By a lease, his privilege of changing his investment might be seriously impaired. For many practical purposes, an unauthorized sale of his land for its value in money might be a less violation of his rights than an unauthorized lease for ninety-nine years. But the possible consequences need not be considered. The primary legal objection is sufficient. The express authority of B and C to carry on his farm for him does not
- ↑ 1 Story, Agency, § 71.
