Opinion
December Term, 1896.
Judgment affirmed, with costs, on opinion of the county judge. All concurred.
The following is the opinion of the county judge:
The question involved in this action is not whether any person other than the lessor can maintain an action upon the lease, but it is whether the rent reserved by the lease belonged to the lessor (William H. Vance) or to the owner of the premises (his wife) for whom he acted as agent. It cannot be disputed that, if the lessor had collected the rent, an action in favor of the principal could have been maintained against him to recover it. This being so and all the parties to the transaction having conceded the right of the lessor's wife to the rent, she cannot be deprived of it by a stranger to the transaction under a technical rule of pleading which requires an action to be brought upon a sealed instrument by and against the parties named in it. Judgment for the plaintiff, with costs.