Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/783

 CITIZENS' INS. CO. V. KOUNTZ LINE. 771 �1. Where there is a sharing of the profits or earnings of «ach sec- tion among the owners of all the sections. Here, upon the same equity which establishes the liability of individuals in partnerships, all the owners are bound by the acts of the agent as to the part of any owner. An illustration of this class is found in the case of Champion v. Bostwick, where both in the supreme court of New York (11 Wend. 571) and in the court of errors (18 Wend. 175) the lia- bility of the owners of all the parts of a route for a negligence upon one part was maintained, because all shared in the profita of the en- tire route. �2. Where, without any sharing of earnings, the common agent, hav- ing authority to bind the owners of each part to carry over the entire route, exercises that authority, and there is a default upon any part of the route. Here all are bound, because all have agreed to be bound. An example of this class is found in Fairchild v. Slocum, 19 Wend. 329, afterwards affirmed by the court of errors, 7 Hill, 292. �3. Where, without any sharing of earnings, the owners of the va- rions sections of a route have a common agent, but in his represent- ative capacity he acts separately for each. In this class of cases, since there is no joint interest and no joint agency, there can be no joint liability, and the owner of each section of the route is bound with reference to transportation over his own section only; for an agent, though he have power to transact the separate business of many, cannot, therefore, bind one of his principals in the separate business of another principal. This class of cases is Hlustrated by Briggs v. Vanderbilt, 19 Barb. 222, and Bonsted v. Vanderbilt, 21 Barb. 26. Into this class also falls the case of St. Louis Ins. Co. v. St. Louis, etc., R. Co, 13 Cent. Law J. 468, where the supreme court holds that Connecting lines having a common agent — each bearing its own general expenses and the expenses of every transportation over it, and each being paid according to its comparative length — had no participation in each others' earnings, no relation or association in the nature of a partnership, so that the case did not fall within the first class; and, further, that in such a case there was no holding out of authority to contract for the varions constituants of the entire route save from each section for itself. �It must be borne in mind that the case now presented to the court for decision is not a suit in equity in which, by a creditor's bill, it is eought to reach property standing in the name of others, but alleged in equity to be the property of William J. Kountz ; but that the allega- tions of the libel present solely the question : Did these five corpora- ��� �