Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 7.djvu/848

 886 rEDBBAIi BBPOBTBB. �party contracting "with him cannot hold the public officer responsible as an agent acting without authority. This doc- trine bas been laid down upon the express ground of the third contracting party's knowledge when entering into the contract of the public agent's want of authority. McCv/rdy V. Rogers, 21 Wis. 197; Birchard v. Warren County, 31 lowa, 389; Boardman v. Hayne, 29 lowa, 339. �In the great county bond litigation which lately agitated the courts of this state, it was never claimed that the county officers who had, as decided by the supreme court of lowa, acted ultra vires in issuing the bonds, were themselves per> Bonally liable as agents contracting without authority. �It bas been suggested that the defendants offered the reward without any formai meeting and resolution of the board authorizing it. This would be material if there had been any statutory authority empowering the board, at a reg- ular or oalled Session, to offer the reward in question; but einee if at an authorized session a resolution of the board offering the reward would have been utterly without author- ity and void, it can make no kind of difference that the defendants acted without such formai meeting and author- ity. If there had been statutory authority, and the defend- ants had acted, in offering the reward, without actual author- ity conferred by the board, the plaintiff could charge them upon the contract as agents acting without or transcending their authority, because in that case the want of authority depending on a matter of fact, not law, notice of the absence of power to make the contract oould not be imputed to the plaintiff. �Pemurrer sustained* ��� �