Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 7.djvu/847

 HUTasnta v. bocsquet. 835 �pose that the authority existed in the board to make the offer, and they, no doubt, both intended that the county of Marion should be bound by it. Having made the contract With this intent, the plaintiflF cannot now convert it into a contract with the defendants personally. The plaintiff can- not make a contract with one party and count upon it in pleading as a contract with another and different party. Howk V. Manon County, 48 lowa, 472. �Can the action be maintained upon the second ground stated above? It is clear that the second ground, like the first, is untenable. When an agent makes a contract in the name of his principal, but without authority, he binds him- self, for the reason that if the agent is not bound there is no one to respond to the third contracting party. If, in such case, the agent were not bound, his] act in representing him- self to have authority would operate as a fraud upon the other contracting party. But if, in such case, the agent were to tell the third contracting party that he had no authority to bind the principal, it would be the folly of the other con- tracting party to enter into such a contract, and he could not claim to be defrauded. Neither could he count upon a contract against the agent, because that would be contrary to the very terms and the manifest intent of the contract. He would have to lie on the bed which he made for himself, with his eyes open. The law does not aim to relieve a party against the consequences of his own folly. The case before us stands upon this principle. The board of supervisors had no authority by law to make the contract on which the plaintiff relies in this action. The plaintiff was bound to know the law, and we must proceed, therefore, upon the assumption that he did, when he acoepted the offer and per- formed the service, know that the board had no authority to offer the reward. The offer was ultra vires. The plaintiff knew it. It was his own folly to accept such an offer. He cannot claim that he was misled or deoeived, and the court cannot relieve him. �It has been frequently decided in this and other statea that where a public officer makes a contract ultra vires, the ��� �