Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 8.djvu/470

454 454 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. the same way, mutatis mutandis, as they do to an order. Since these customs have been stated, they need not be repeated here. A notice which would be typical would read, " I have bought for your account and risk lOO C. B. & O. at 71 from Brown." The notice must be given to the customer in such away as that knowl- edge of its contents can be imputed fairly to him. To do this it would be held in most jurisdictions that mailing to the customer the notice properly addressed and postage prepaid, or leaving it at his business office or home, was sufficient, without proof that the notice reached him, where there was no evidence that it did not reach him.^ The legal nature of the obligation imposed by the custom re- quiring the stockbroker to give this notice to the customer is diffi- cult to determine. ■ It may be considered that the giving of the notice is a condition of the customer's offer to pay a commission,^ or that it is independent of the customer's offer, and is a part of the stockbroker's duty as agent which does not come into exist- ence until the order has been executed and the commission earned. The latter view seems to be the correct one, and to have been adopted in the case of Hoffman v. Livingstone,^ the only case on this question. That it is the only case shows of what little impor- tance this question is. The practical necessities of notifying the customer are so great that the stockbroker will not neglect it. If the former view is taken, the customer's offer to pay a com- mission does not ripen into a promise until he has been notified ; if the latter, it ripens into a promise as soon as the order is ex- ecuted. At the one time or the other the customer is bound to 1 In Granite Bank v. Ayers, -^^t, Mass. 392, Shaw, C. J., lays down the rule that "all notices at one's domicile, and all notices respecting transactions of a commercial nature at one's known place of business, are deemed in law to be a good constructive notice, and to have the legal effect of actual notice." Subject to this rule of law, the question whether the customer was notified or not is a question for the jury. Minor V. Beveridge, 141 N. Y. 399. 2 Cf. such cases as Ramsgate Victoria Hotel Co. Lim. v. Montefiore, L. R. i Ex. 109, and In re National Savings Bank Association; Hebb's Case, L. R. 4 Eq. 9. If this view is taken of the duty to give notice, it would seem that logically the customer could revoke his order until the notice was given him ; but whatever consequences are to be given to such a revocation, the customer cannot relieve himself from being bound by the execution of the order, if the stockbroker has done so before the revoca- tion takes place, inasmuch as, in executing the order, the stockbroker acts as agent for the customer, and binds him by his acts. ^ 46 N. Y. Superior Court, where it was decided that a failure to give this notice was such " negligence " on the part of the stockbroker as to preclude him from recovering his commissions.