Tomasini

This is an appeal from a judgment in favor of plaintiff and against defendant in an action to recover the sum of $509.35, the balance alleged to be due upon the purchase price of goods, wares, and merchandise sold by plaintiff to defendant Mabel Burdell Smith.

Said defendant was engaged in operating as her separate property a dairy ranch in the county of Marin, consisting principally of grazing land and about one hundred and twenty cows. Early in the year 1908, while she was absent from California, her foreman, one D. A. Walker, without her knowledge, changed the method of operating the ranch by the introduction of milking machines, purchased from the plain tiff, the milking up to that time having been performed by hand. In support of her appeal she contends, first, that it appears from the evidence that her agent Walker had no authority, express or implied, to purchase the machines; and in this contention we are inclined to agree. It is true that Walker, previous to the transaction here involved, had purchased on her account a great many small articles, sometimes with express authority and sometimes without; but whenever this was done without authorization his action, by…