Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/447

 HAMILTON V. EIKaSBUBT. ^38 �permit him, or the plaintiff as his assignee, by a title derîved from him subseqùently to his conveyance to Lombard & Thompson, to assert his real title against the defendants; that a contrary rule would operate as a fraud by Milton A. Hamilton upon the defendants; that the case is one for the application of the principle in favor of the defendants that where one of two innocent parties must sustain loss from the fraud of a third, such loss must fail upon the one, if either, ■whose act bas enabled such fraud to be committed ; that the defendants are innocent purchasers, upon the faith of the apparent title conferred upon Lombard & Thompson; that any fraud wbich bas been committed bas been committed by virtue of the evidence of title whieh the plaintiff' s assignor put into the hands of Lombard & Thompson; and thatfrauds may be perpetrated on the public if the owners of patents, who give absolute assignable licenses, are permitted to treat as infringers purchasers of such licenses, by virtue of a secret agreement entered into at the time of the execution of the license. �Two cases are referred to by the defendants : McNeil v. Tenth Nat. Bank, 46 N. Y. 325, and Moore v. Metropolitan Nat. Bank, 55 N. Y. 41. The head note of the first case is that where the owner of property confers upon another an appar- ent title to or power of disposition over it, he is estopped from asserting his title as against an innocent third party, who bas dealt with the apparent owner in reference thereto, without knowledge of the claims of the true owner; and that the rights of such third party do not depend upon the actual title or authority of the one with whom he dealt, but upon the act of the owner, which precludes him from disputing the title or authority he bas apparently conferred. The doctrine was limited, by the decision, to the case where the owner had en- trusted to another, not merely the possession of the property, but written evidence over his own signature of title thereto, and of an unconditional power of disposition over it. The same doctrine was applied in Moore v. Metropolitan Nut. Bank, where it was held that the bonafide purchaser for value of a non-negotiable chose in action from one upon whom the �v.4,no.5— 28 ����