ground, but submitted the question of defend-¡ Bill in equity by the Colonial Trust Comant's own negligence. We see nothing wrong pany, a corporation, receiver of John A. in this view. Plaintiff was allowed to amend Wood, Jr., bankrupt, against the Central his statement by striking out claims under, Trust Company, a corporation, and another. and all reference to, the statutes of Ontario From decree dismissing bill and cross-bill, and the Dominion of Canada; but the state- | filed by Clara J. Kirkland, plaintiff and crossment continued to disclose a good cause of plaintiff appeal. Affirmed. action, and one which had been included from the first. The motion to amend was called out by the request of defendant's counsel that plaintiff should elect whether to proceed under the common law or under the statute.

Appeal from Court of Common Pleas, Alle- $gheny County.

(6) On Friday, January 14, 1910, in the forenoon, Mr. Hetzel, the secretary and treasurer of the Central Trust Company, went to the office of the maker of the notes to demand payment and to deliver the notes and collateral, but, finding the office closed, put the notice through the letter hole in the door. From there he went to the Colo- | (9) On the same day that the pledged nial Trust Company, where he presented the securities were purchased by the pledgee notes to F. F. Brooks, the trust officer, for they were placed in the hands of a broker payment, about 11 o'clock, and, being inform- | for sale, and some of them were sold on the ed by that officer that the company did not have the funds with which to pay the notes, he said that the collateral would have to be sold, but did not at that time designate any

other securities, and purchased by the pledgee.

Exceptions to the findings of fact and law of the trial judge were dismissed by the court, and a decree was entered dismissing the bill and cross-bill.

(10) The pledgor, John A. Wood, Jr., has at no time complained of the action of the pledgee in selling the pledge, and the only objection is on the part of his trustee in bankruptcy, and that principally on the ground that the securities should have been sold on the stock exchange or some public place where there might be competition. | ELKIN, Neither the pledgor nor his trustee in bank- ER, JJ. ruptcy offered at any time to redeem the pledge, and the trustee was at no time in possession of sufficient funds to do so.

(11) The pledgor made no representations to the parties interested in the sale of the securities, nor is it claimed by any one that the pledgee practiced any deception on the pledgor or his trustee in bankruptcy at any time previous to or at the time of the sale of the pledged securities, or that the pledgee did not have the legal right to sell the same.

(12) There was no proof that the securities as a whole were worth, on the day of the sale, more than the amount of the pledgee's claim.

Argued before FELL, C. J., and BROWN,
STEWART, and MOSCHZISK-

James W. Kinnear, of Pittsburgh, for appellant Colonial Trust Co. William W. Wishart and J. Roy Dickie, both of Pittsburgh, for appellant Kirkland. J. A. Langfitt, of Pittsburgh, for appellee.

BROWN, J. [1] The facts found by the court below were all properly found. Under the evidence, they could not have been different, and the very narrow question on these appeals is whether the Central Trust Company acted within its rights under Wood's pledging agreement with it when it purchased the pledged securities on January 15, 1910. If it did so act, it became the absolute owner of the securities, accountable to no

In refusing the prayer of the cross-bill, the one for any profit it might subsequently following facts were found:

(1) The plaintiff was the owner of 25 shares of the preferred capital stock of the Crucible Steel Company on August 25, 1909, and on that day she took her certificate to the office of John A. Wood, Jr., a stockbroker, and gave it to H. M. Ilyus, his bookkeeper, with instructions to sell the same when the market reached a certain price. Ilyus was not a stockbroker; Wood had sold stock for her on a previous occasion.

(2) On leaving her stock at Wood's of fice, she executed a blank power of attorney to assign and transfer the certificate, and her signature was witnessed by Ilyus, who turned the certificate over to Wood.

On November 1, 1909, Wood borrowed $10,000 from the Central Trust Company, and delivered plaintiff's certificate, with other securities, to the company as collateral security for the payment of his note given for that amount. The pledgee had no knowledge of plaintiff's ownership of the certificate, and received the same in good faith from Wood, par value.

(3) On January 13, 1910, plaintiff discovered that her certificate was in the hands of the Central Trust Company as collateral for the payment of Wood's note, and on that day served through her counsel, Jennings & Jennings, a written notice on the company of her ownership and that the same was not to be disposed of without notice to them.

realize on a resale of them, just as it could look to no one to reimburse it for any loss it might sustain. Plucker v. Teller, 174 Pa. 529, 34 Atl. 208, 52 Am. St. Rep. 825. By resales of those securities, made in a few days, it realized $1,582.29 over and above Wood's indebtedness to it.

[2] If it is the legal right of the appellee to keep that money, no proceeding in equity can give it to another. Legal rights are as safe in chancery as they are in a court of law, and, however strong an appeal may be to the conscience of a chancellor for equitable relief, he is powerless to grant it if the one from whom it must come will be deprived of a legal right. Relief in such a case can come only as the conscience of the one vested with the legal right may prompt him to bestow it. In the case under consideration the learned chancellor below held, and was compelled to hold, that the Central Trust Company is but exercising a legal right in holding onto the money claimed by the complainants in the bill and cross-bill, and, this being so, equity can do nothing for either of them.

If the Central Trust Company was required to sell the securities at public sale, it would be well contended that such a sale was not held. Counsel for appellants concede this to be true and say of the sale that it was a private one, "made in a semipublic way." The authority given by the pledgor to the pledgee did not require a public sale of the pledged securities upon the failure of the pledgor to pay his obligations. The broad authority given was to sell "at public or private sale," at the option of the appellee, on the nonperformance of the promise of Wood to pay, and such sale could be without demand, advertisement, or notice, with

On January 14, 1910, the pledgee notified her counsel that the stock would be sold on the following day, at 9:30 a. m., at pledgee's place of business. Mr. Jennings was present at the sale, and then and there gave further notice that the ownership of that certificate was in his client, the plaintiff.

was sold and purchased by the appellee, no surplus was realized from the sale of all of the securities to be accounted for to either of the two appellants.

Appeals dismissed, and decree affirmed at the costs of appellants.

chaser and absolute owner of the securities, | 735; King v. National Bank, 227 Pa. 22, 75 free of all claims and trusts. The terms Atl. 832. On the day this particular stock of this contract could not be clearer, and, as it was a lawful one, the pledgor and his trustee in bankruptcy are bound by it, and the pledgee, in the absence of fraud, had the right to become the absolute purchaser of the securities at a private sale. McManus v. Sweatman, 22 Wkly. Notes Cas. 54; Jeanes' Appeal, 116 Pa. 573, 11 Atl. 862, 2 Am. St. Rep. 624; Hiscock v. Varick Bank of New York, 206 U. S. 28, 27 Sup. Ct. 681, 51 L. Ed. 945. Nothing done by the pledgee, from the time it took the securities from the pledgor until it sold them, bears the slightest taint of fraud, and that it was justified in selling them in the manner complained of by the appellants is made clear by the following facts found by the court below: "When the pledgee learned of the failure of the pledgor, it made immediate investigation of the character of the securities in its hands, with a view to protection against loss. The market value of some of the pledged stocks was at times of little value; some were speculative and nondividend paying; and at the time of the sale the market was on a decline, and had the sale been delayed for a month longer the pledgee would have sustained a loss. The Westinghouse stocks were of companies then in financial difficulties. There was no proof that the securities as a whole were worth, on the day of the sale, more than the amount of the pledgee's claim."

STEWART, J. (dissenting). Though the trust company was an innocent holder of the certificate for 25 shares of stock in the Crucible Steel Company, the stock was nevertheless, except as distinguished by legal technicality, stolen property; and this fact was brought to the knowledge of the trust company before it undertook to convert the stock. The trust company held this stock along with a variety of other stocks as collateral to the debt owed it by John A. Wood, Jr., from whom it received the certificate. Under such circumstances, with the fact brought home to it that the Crucible Steel stock had been embezzled, that it was not the property of Wood who pledged it, but was the property of Mrs. Kirkland, did any duty attach to the trust company, as affecting the rights of the owner of the stock? I am not questioning the right of the trust company to use this stock for its own protection against loss on the loan to Wood, and to exhaust it, if necessary to that end. What I assert is that common honesty, to say nothing of decorus regard for the right of another who had been fraudulently imposed upon and defrauded, ought to have suggested to the trust company a moral obligation it was under to confine the fraudulent pledge it received to simple indemnification; that any attempt on its part to derive more would be but an effort to reap benefit or advantage from embezzlement perpetrated by another. On the same morning the trust company was notified of the embezzlement of this stock, in the office of its secretary, it auctioned off to itself, in one lot, all the stock that Wood had pledged, including the stock of Mrs. Kirkland, for a sum equal to the indebtedness of Wood to the bank. It immediately placed all of the stock that it had thus come to own in the hands of a broker and sold it, with the result that it realized, over and above the payment of [3] No distinction can be made between the Wood's indebtedness, the sum of $1,500 profit. claim of Clara J. Kirkland, the victim of This profit represents the value of Mrs. KirkWood's perfidy, and that of the complainant land's stock. The transaction, however it in the original bill. She executed the power may be regarded with respect to the stock of attorney in the usual form on the back honestly pledged by Wood, takes on a very of her stock certificate, without restriction or different aspect when we come to consider condition, and the appellee took it and held Mrs. Kirkland's relation to it. Hers was the it as an innocent pledgee, without notice, di- stock, subject to the right of the trust comvested of all claims that she might have up-pany to indemnity thereout. The trust comon it. Wood's Appeal, 92 Pa. 379, 37 Am. pany knew it was Mrs. Kirkland's. When Rep. 694: Gilbert v. Building Association, it auctioned off the stock that had been pledg184 Pa. 554, 39 Atl. 291; Cochran v. Fox ed to it, it knew that included in the lot was Chase Bank, 209 Pa. 34, 58 Atl. 117, 103 Am. the stock that had been virtually stolen from St. Rep. 976: Shattuck v. American Cement | Mrs. Kirkland. It was bound by every moral

Under the terms of the note, the securities pledged for its payment might have been sold by the trust company at private sale, without demand upon the maker to pay and without notice to him that such sale would be made. This, however, was not done, though the securities pledged by the adjudged bankrupt were held on a fluctuating and declining market. On January 14, 1910, demand was made upon the trustee in bankruptcy for payment, and, upon his refusal to pay, notice was given him that the collaterals would be sold. What was done by the appellee in selling them was lawfully done, and the title which it acquired was an absolute one. On this unanswerable legal proposition it has a right to stand when alleged equities are asserted against it.

An employer need not stand by during the progress of the work to guard against danger from the failure of some workman to do his part.

[Ed. Note.-For other cases, see Master and Servant, Cent. Dig. § 331; Dec. Dig. § 164.*] Appeal from Court of Common Pleas, Allegheny County.

Trespass by Albert Balewski, afterwards substituted to Mary Balewski, administratrix, against the Carnegie Steel Company, a corporation, for personal injuries. From an order refusing to take off nonsuit, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Argued before FELL, C. J., and BROWN, POTTER, ELKIN, and STEWART, JJ.

Denis A. E. Behen, of Pittsburgh, for appellant. John J. Heard, Reed, Smith, Shaw & Beal, and Wm. A. Seifert, all of Pittsburgh, for appellee.

stolen stock from the others, and sell it only | 2. MASTER AND SERVANT (§ 164*)-DUTY TO as the other stock proved insufficient for its PROTECT EMPLOYÉ. indemnification. The subsequent conduct of the trust company in throwing the stock on the public market on the same day of its auction sale to itself is to my mind persuasive evidence that the auction sale, made in the way it was, was intended as a transaction whereby the trust company might reap advantage from the stock over and above simple protection. Why the trust company sold to itself the stock in bulk rather than by the usual method, which it the same day adopted when it sold the stock as its own, is without other explanation. The maxim, “Sic utere tuo ut alienum non lædas," has a legal meaning apt to be obscured by a too literal translation of its terms. In its legal signification it means: So use your own property as not to injure the rights of another. Broom's Legal Maxims, § 328. The trust company had a right to use this particular stock for its indemnity, but only in case it was required for that purpose. Whether it would POTTER, J. [1] This is an appeal from be required could only be determined upon the refusal of the court below to take off a the sale of the other securities which it held, judgment of compulsory nonsuit. The dethe ownership of which was not in dispute. fendant company was charged with negli It was the bounden duty of the trust com- gence in the method of operating a Bessemer pany, because of the circumstances we have converter, used in the process of making steel adverted to, notwithstanding the contract at its works. From the testimony it appears with Wood admitted of its doing what it did, that at a certain stage in the process it was to sell this stock in the usual way on the customary to pour water into the converter. general market, and sell Mrs. Kirkland's As the trial judge says in his opinion, "such stock only in case the other stocks did not had been the practice at these works for at realize sufficient to indemnify the company. least a year, and perhaps four years prior to By the sale of the stock to itself the trust the explosion; and it does not appear that company did not become an innocent pur- any explosion had ever occurred before. It chaser for value: it bought with full notice does not appear that the use of water with of the fact that the stock belonged to Mrs. which to cool the converter was, of itself, Kirkland; and therefore her rights remained dangerous, but on the contrary it was conjust what they were before. With her own-sidered entirely safe, provided the water ership admitted or established, equity, with respect to this stock, would have regarded her as but surety for Wood to that extent, and for her protection would have enjoined a sale of it until it had been made to appear that its conversion was required for the full indemnity of the trust company. Such being my view of the case, I would sustain Mrs. Kirkland's appeal.

(243 Pa. 366)

was blown out or reduced to steam before raising the vessel to a perpendicular position. Otherwise it was considered dangerous." It seems that in this case the converter exploded after being raised to a vertical position. But except as it may be inferred from the fact that the explosion occurred, there was nothing to show that water remained in the converter when it was raised from the horizontal to the vertical position. If this was the case, it was the fault of the men in charge of the converter. There was nothing however to show any departure from the usual and ordinary practice in the use of the converter. We agree with the trial court that the case is bare of evidence tending to Where, in an action for injuries to an em- show any failure of duty upon the part of the ployé from the explosion of a converter used defendant company. All the facilities for in making steel, it appeared that the converter was dangerous only when not properly operated, doing the work in the customary way were and that all facilities for its proper operation provided. The air blast was turned on seemwere provided, and there was no evidence show-ingly for the usual time and in the usual way ing failure of duty by defendant or the cause prior to raising the converter, with the preof the accident, a compulsory nonsuit was proper. sumed effect of blowing out of the converter [Ed. Note. For other cases, see Master and Servant, Cent. Dig. 88 1000-1090, 1092-1132; any remaining water. Dec. Dig. § 284.*]

BALEWSKI v. CARNEGIE STEEL CO. (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Jan. 5, 1914.)

1. MASTER AND SERVANT (§ 284*)-INJURIES

TO SERVANT-COMPULSORY NONSUIT.

[2] Possibly a closer inspection of the con

For other cases see same topic and section NUMBER in Dec. Dig. & Am. Dig. Key-No. Series & Rep'r Indexes