that plaintiff at that time saw no other person exercising authority at the defendant’s elevator. It appears from the testimony that plaintiff, having ground for suspicion that one Gregg McCann had stolen a wagon load of grain from his granary, and sold it to defendant at its elevator in La Moure, went to the elevator and was then and there informed by Lighthall that he (Lighthall) had within the preceding twenty-four hours received of McCann a quantity of wheat, and had issued tickets to McCann for the same. The admissions and declarations of Lighthall were received in evidence against the objections of the defendant, and the rulings of the trial court thereon were duly excepted to. We think the rulings were erroneous, and that the defendant’s motion, made after the testimony was closed, to direct a verdict for defendant, should have been granted. See Bowman v. Eppinger, ante p. 21, (44 N. W. 1000,) and authorities cited.
It is elementary that a principal in a transaction may, by his admissions or confessions made at any time, either before or after the event, render himself liable for the legal consequences of his acts, both in civil and criminal cases; but the legal liability of a principal for the acts of an agent cannot be fixed by the declarations or statements of the agent except in certain well-defined classes of cases. “It must be remembered,” says Green-leaf, “that the admission of the agent cannot always be assimilated to the admissions of the principal The party’s own admission, whenever made, may be given in evidence against him; but the admission or declaration of his agent binds him only when it is made, during the continuance of the agency, in regard to a transaction then depending, et dum fervit opus. It is because it is a verbal act, and part of the res gestcæ, that it is admissible at all, and therefore it is not necessary to call the agent himself to prove it.” 1 Greenl. Ev. § 113. Mr. Justice Story, in his work on Agency, (section 134), states the rule as follows: “Where the acts of the agent will bind the principal, there his representations, declarations, and admissions respecting the subject-matter will also bind him, if made at the same time, and constituting a part of the res gestæ.” In Packet Co. v. Clough, 20 Wall. 540, the Supreme court of the United
