Charles T. Powner Co. v. Smith

Plaintiff, who is appellant here, - is the owner of a bookstore in Los Angeles. Defendant, who is respondent here, was the employee and manager of said bookstore working for wages paid weekly. His work of running the store kept him in the store from opening to closing time with the exception of an hour off for lunch. Appellant brought this action for damages and accounting, charging that the respondent, in violation of his duties and obligations as an employee, engaged in buying and selling books on his own account in competition with and to the neglect and damage of the business and profits of appellant.

The judgment was in general favorable to respondent. It allowed appellant $88, which represented respondent’s profit on the sale of four new Penal Codes and one secondhand set of Encyclopedia Britannica, which were bought and sold by respondent under circumstances which meant that he had used his employer’s time and facilities in these deals. Respondent had also made a profit of about $851 in working as sales manager for a book concern which through field salesmen sold new editions of California codes. The court refused to allow this amount to the appellant, finding that…