Rosia Adams, a warehouse employee at a school board warehouse, was injured when
ID: 390125 • Letter: R
Question
Rosia Adams, a warehouse employee at a school board warehouse, was injured when she slipped on a wet floor at the warehouse. The floor was wet because it had been mopped to clean up a spill from a defective Coca-Cola vending machine leased to the school district by a local Coca-Cola bottling company (Coke). The written lease for the machine required the school board to indemnify Coke for injuries like those suffered by Adams. The lease was signed by a warehouse inventory clerk. His job was simply to receive and inventory goods delivered to the school board’s warehouse. Adams sued Coke and got a judgment against it. Coke filed a third party suit against the school board, arguing that the lease obligated the school board to compensate Coke for Adams’s injuries. Based on the facts just presented, did the warehouse clerk have express, implied or apparent authority to bind the school board to this particular term in the lease?
Explanation / Answer
No the warehouse clerk did not have express, implied or apparent authority to bind the school board to this particular term in the lease.
As per an express authority an agent has actually been empowered by a contract to act on behalf of the principal. Here the agent is the warehouse clerk and the principal is the school board. The school board has given powers to the clerk only with regards to receive and inventory goods delivered to the school board’s warehouse. Thus there is no express authority here of the clerk to deal with the lease contract. His expressed authority is only limited to receive and inventory goods, nothing more.
Implied authority is reasonable and necessary in nature and enables the agent to carry out his duties and the expressed authority. In this case the clerk does not have to sign the lease contract in order to carry out his duties of managing the goods delivered to the warehouse. Thus there is no implied authority here.
Apparent authority is the authority that is deemed upon the agent on the basis of the words, actions and conduct of the principal. In this case the principal is the school warehouse and their conduct and action has never created an impression and led a third party (in this case The Coca Cola Company) to believe that the clerk had the authority to sign the lease. Thus there was no apparent authority as well.
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