DEFENDANT’S APPEAL.
The defendant Haynie has neither answered nor appealed, and the questions presented are in adjustment of the rights of plaintiff as against defendant Kress & Company. In this view, the jury, accepting plaintiff’s version of the matter, have found that defendant, through its general manager, had agreed to employ plaintiff for the year 1921 at $24 per week. That such contract had been wrongfully broken, and plaintiff had suffered damages in the sum of $725.40. Judgment has been entered for the amount, and we find no reason for disturbing the results of the trial.
It was chiefly urged for defendant that the facts in evidence showed the defendant had given Haynie no express authority to employ help except for a month at a time, but the contract, in our opinion, was well within the apparent powers of the general manager of such a store. There was nothing unusual in its terms to excite attention or arouse *537inquiry, and in such, case it is held that as to third persons uninformed as to the conditions, the real and apparent authority is the same, and a principal is not allowed to protect himself by private instructions or limitations on the agent’s authority, known only to them. The correct doctrine on the subject is very well stated in the first headnote to Powell v. Lumber Co., 168 N. C., 632, as follows:
“A general agent is one who is authorized to act for his principal in all matters concerning a particular business or employment of a particular nature, and he may usually bind his principal as to all acts within the scope of such agency; and as to third persons dealing with the agent, this real and apparent authority are the same, and not subject to restrictions of a private nature placed thereon by the principal, unless they are known to such person, or the act or power in question is of such unusual character as to put a man of reasonable business prudence upon inquiry as to the existence of the particular authority claimed.”
A position all the more insistent in this 'ease from the additional facts appearing in evidence that the plaintiff and her husband had made an entire and substantial change of their plans for the year 1921, owing to the agreement to employ the wife for' the entire year at the wages •specified.
There is no error in defendant’s appeal, and the judgment is affirmed.
No error.
PlAINTIEf’s Afpeal.
It is fully recognized in this jurisdiction that a corporation may be held liable “for the willful as well as negligent torts of their agents, and that the principle, in proper instances, may be extended to actions for slander where the defamatory words are uttered by the express authority of the company, or within the course and scope of the agent’s employment.” Cotton v. Fisheries Products Co., 177 N. C., 56-59, citing Cooper v. R. R., 170 N. C., 490; Jackson v. Tel. Co., 139 N. C., 347, and other cases.
As said in that opinion, however, owing to the facility and thoughtless way that such words are not infrequently used by employees, they should not, perhaps, be imported to the company as readily as in more deliberate circumstances; that is, they should not be so readily considered as being within the scope of the agent’s employment. This suggested limitation on the more general principle is approved with us in the case of Sawyer v. R. R., 142 N. C., 1, where a superintendent, after refusing to employ an applicant for work, proceeded, after such refusal, to abuse and defame the plaintiff, and in holding that the defamatory words could not be fairly considered as within the scope of the superintendent’s official *538duties, tbe Court quoted from "Wood on Master and Servant, sec. 279, as follows:
“The question usually presented is whether, as a matter of fact or of law, the injury was received under such circumstances that, under the employment, the master can be said to have authorized the act; for if he did not, either in fact or in law, he cannot be made chargeable for its consequences, because, not having been done under authority from him, express or implied, it can in no sense be said to be his act, and the-maxim previously referred to does not apply. The test of liability in all cases depends upon the question whether the injury was committed by the authority of the master expressly conferred or fairly implied from the nature of the employment and the duties incident to it.”
In our opinion this case, and the principle it illustrates, are in full support of his Honor’s decision in setting the verdict against defendant aside on the issues as to the slander, for here, more than in that case, the slanderous words could in no sense be considered as within the scope of the agent’s employment. On the contrary, the facts in evidence show that the discharge of plaintiff was a closed incident so far as Haynie’s official duties were concerned, and the husband had gone to him seeking an explanation, and Ilaynie, in answer to his inquiry, said, “You come to me like a man and ask me why I discharged her, and I am going to tell you.” This was clearly a conversation between the two individuals as to an event that had passed, and, as stated, could in no sense be considered as within the course and scope of Haynie’s employment, or as an utterance by authority of the company, either express or implied.
¥e find no error in either appeal, and the entire judgment, as entered by his Honor, is affirmed.
No error.