Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/841

 IN EE FEANKLIN M. KETCHUM. 883 �thereon, dealt with him as their copartner accordingly, and applied it to Jbis account, that they might have been relieved. �The case discloses that the plaintiff was a customer of the defendants' firm, but the liability of the defendants is not rested at ail on any fiduciary relation between the firm and the plaintiff, as respects her stocks, but wholly, as it seems, on the receipt of her money. �The case also suggests another ground on which the firm of Ketchum & Belknap must be held liable ; that, as Franklin M. Ketehum deliberately left to bis copartner ail that part of the business which related to the raising of money, he is chargeable with the knowledge of ail suoh facts as he might, with ordinary diligence in attending to his business, have dis- covered. He eonstituted Belknap his agent to raise money for the firm. It seems reasonable that he should be held liable, civilly, of course, for what Belknap did in that respect ; at least, so far as he might, with reasonable diligence, have discovered the facts. He did not seek to know what Belknap did, or how or where he got money for the firm. The rule laid down in Marsh v. Keatiny, for such a case, is the only safe rule of business, since, if the rule were otherwise, part- ners might purposely keep themselves ignorant of wHat their partners did, in order to avail themselves of their f rauds by rea- son of their ignorance, and it would be almost impossible to detect such a fraud. Equity helps the diligent. The rule is, also, in accordance with the principle that pervades the law of principal and agent, that the principal is liable, civilly, for the acts of his agent, done in the conduct of his business. �The other case relied on by the opposing crediter is Jacques V. Marquand, 6 Cow. 497. In that case one member of a firm had misappropriated the plaintiff's property, which he had held upon a special trust, and had used the proceeds in paying debts of the firm; and he pleaded, in abatement, that the other partner was not joined as a defendant. The evidence showed that Paulding, the defendant's copartner, lived in New Orleans, and the defendant in New ïork, and Paulding knew nothing of the transaction. The court citeA �Vl,no.l0— 53 ��� �