ACTS-IN-THE-LAW
115
as to dealings with property during the period of suspense
pending the fulfilment of a condition—B.G.B. 163.
8. AGENCY
a. Definition of the Term.
115. An act of agency (Vertretung), within the meaning of the
German term, is a manifestation of the agent's volition intended
to operate, as if it were a manifestation of the principal’s volition.
A mere act of transmission is not an act of agency within the
meaning of the German law ; a person transmitting a declaration
of intention is called a messenger (Bote), and is not within the
definition of an agent.
An agent must also be distinguished from a person acting in
his own name, though employed on behalf of another person.
Thus a commission merchant? (239) employed to buy goods, but
dealing with the vendor of the goods in his own name, is not an
agent within the meaning of the German definition.
In the usual English terminology the expression agent' is
frequently applied to designate any person employed by another,
whether as a messenger, as an independent contractor, or as an
agent within the meaning defined above, but in the course of
this treatise it will be used in the narrower sense only.
An act of agency is 'active? where the agent makes a declaration ¬
of intention on his principal's behalf ; it is passive where
he receives a declaration of intention addressed to the principal
through his agency. As, according to the definition, the act
of agency must be a manifestation of the agent's own volition,
active or passive acts of agency on the part of a person under
incapacity are inoperative, but by virtue of an express enactment
contained in B.G.B. 165, the effectiveness of an active or
passive act of agency is not impaired by the fact that the agent
is of restricted capacity.
b. Modes of establishing Agency.
aa. Agency created by Legal Rules.
116. Powers of agency are frequently conferred by legal
rules on persons standing in certain relations to others. The
powers of the statutory agent who acts on behalf of any
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