Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/371

GLOVBB V. AMES. 357 �Buch duties to discharge shall be allowed to enter into engagements in which he has or can have a personal interest conflicting, or which pos- sibly may conflict, with the interest of those whom he is bound to pro- tect. So strictly is this principle adhered to that no question is allowed to be raised as to the faimess or unfaimess of a contract so entered into. It may sometimes happen that the terms on which a trustee has dealt, or attempted to deal, with the estate or interest of those for whom he is a trustee, have been as good as could have been obtained from any other person ; they may even at the time have been better; still, so inflexible is the rule, that noinquiry upontbat subject is permitted, or, as is stated by Judge Story in his Commentary on Agencies, section 210, — �" In matters touching the agency, agents cannot act so as to bind their princi- pals, where they have an adverse interest in themselves. This rule is f ounded upon the plain and obvious consideration that the principal bargains in the employment for the exercise of the disinterested skill, diligence, and zeal of the agent for his own exclusive beueflt." �To use the language of Mr. Justice Wayne in Michaud v. Girod, 4 Howard : �" The agent must refrain from placing himself in relations which ordi- narily excite a conflict between self-interest and integrity. The disability is a consequence of that relation between the parties, which imposes on one the duties to protect the interest of the other, from the faithful discharge of such duty his own personal interest may withdraw him. In this conflict of interest the law wisely interferes. It acts uot on the possibility that in some cases the sense of that duty may prevail over the motive of self-interest, but it provides against the probability in many cases, and the danger in all cases, that the dictates of self-interest wlU exercise a predominant influence and supersede that of duty." �In that case an executor had purchased the property of the testa- tor through a third person, but this language of the court is alike applicable to the sale under consideration. �In Stainhrock v. Read, 11 Grattan, 291, this principle was applied to a case in some respects similar to the present. There a power of attorney was given to an agent to draw bills, indorse notes, etc., but it was held that the agent was not authorized thereby to draw bills for his own benefit, but ouly for the benefit of his principal, �So in Parsons v. Wehb, 8 Greenl. 38. An agent was there author- ized to sell the plaintiff's horse. He sold him to his own creditor in payment of his own debt, and it was held that the sale was invalid, and that the original owner could maintain replevin for the horse against a subsequent vendee. In thus disposing of this vessel to his ��� �