Page:Henry Osborn Taylor, A Treatise on the Law of Private Corporations (5th ed, 1905).djvu/333

 PART IV.] LIABILITY FOR TORTS OF AGENTS. [§338. § 337. It has been frequently said that " corporations are liable for every wrong they commit, and in such cases the doc- trine of ultra vires has no application." 1 This phrase contains endless ambiguities. In two of the cases cited in the note, the remark was unnecessary, if not inapplicable, to the decision of the case. In Merchants' Bank v. State Bank, 2 whatever wrong was committed, was committed by the cashier in the course of what the court decided the injured party was entitled to regard as the scope of the cashiers employment and authority. In National Bank v. Graham the bank was sued for the loss of a spe- cial deposit occurring through the gross negligence of its officers and emplo3 T es. All the stock was owned by the directors, who knew of the receipt of the special deposit, and had acquiesced in it for years, and the court said, " it is now well settled that if a bank be accustomed to take such deposits as the one here in question, and this is known and acquiesced in by the direct- ors, and the property is lost by the gross carelessness of the bailee, a liability ensues in like manner as if the deposit had been authorized by the terms of the charter." 3 And to clinch the irrelevancy of the dictum, the court held that the bank was authorized by its charter to receive the deposit. § 338. An exposure of the ambiguities or inaccuracies of the phrase above mentioned may be found in an opinion where a similar phrase is used. "A corporation is liable to the same extent, and under the same circumstances, as a natural person for the consequences of its wrongful acts, and will be held to respond in a civil action at the suit of an injured party for every grade and description of forcible, malicious, or negligent poration which runs a ferry boat for hire, and accepts fares, etc., is liable in an action in tort for personal in- juries to a passenger, though running a ferry was ultra vires. Nims v. Mt. Ilermon School, 160 Mass. 177 ; & & O. By. Co. p. Howard, 178 U. S. 153 . 1 National Bank v. Graham, 100 U. S. 699, 702 ; Merchants' Bank v. State Bank, 10 Wall. 604, 645 ; Hussey v. Norfolk R. R. Co., 98 N. C. 34 ; Pron- ger p. Old Nat. B'k, 20 Wash. 618. 2 See § 243 for a fuller statement of this case. 3 Citing Foster v. Essex Bank, 17 Mass. 479 ; Lancaster County Nat B'k v. Smith, 62 Pa. St. 47 ; Scott v. Nat. B'k of Chester Valley, 72 Pa. St. 471; First Nat. B'k v. Graham, 79 Pa. St. 106 ; Turner v. First Nat. Bank, 26 Iowa, 562 ; Smith v. First Nat. B'k. 99 Mass. 605 ; Chattahoochee Nat, B'k v. Schley, 58 Ga. 369. Contra, Wiley o. First Nat. B'k, 47 Vt. 54(5 ; Whitney v. First Nat. B'k, 50 Vt. 389. See § 161. 313