authority

Permission. Right to exercise powers; to implement and enforce laws; to exact obedience; to command; to judge.

Control over; jurisdiction. Often synonymous with power. The power delegated by a principal to his agent. The lawful delegation of power by one person to another. Power of agent to affect legal relations of principal by acts done in accordance with principal's manifestations of consent to agent.

See Restatement, Second, Agency No. 7.

Refers to the precedential value to be accorded an opinion of a judicial or administrative body. A court's opinion is binding authority on other courts directly below it in the judicial hierarchy. Opinions of lower courts or of courts outside the hierarchy are governed by the degree to which it adheres to the doctrine of stare decisis.

See stare decisis.

Legal power; a right to command or to act; the right and power of public officers to require obedience to their orders lawfully issued in the scope of their public duties.

See also

- actual authority

- apparent authority

- binding authority

- commission

- competent authority

- constructive authority

- control

- credentials

- implied authority

- power

- precedent

- real authority

- scope of authority

@ actual express authority

Actual authority derived from written or spoken words of principal.

See also actual authority

@ actual implied authority

Actual authority inferred from words or conducted manifested to agent by principal.

See also implied authority

@ authority by estoppel

Not actual, but apparent only, being imposed on the principal because his conduct has been such as to mislead, so that it would be unjust to let him deny it.

See apparent authority

@ authority coupled with an interest

Authority given to an agent for a valuable consideration, or which forms part of a security.

@

- express authority

@ general authority

That which authorizes the agent to do everything connected with a particular business. It empowers him to bind his principal by all acts within the scope of his employment; and it cannot be limited by any private direction not known to the party dealing with him.

@

- implied authority

@ incidental authority

Such authority as is necessary to carry out authority which is actually or apparently given, e.g. authority to borrow money carries with it as an incidental authority the power to sign commercial paper to effectuate the borrowing.

@ inferred authority

See incidental authority.

@ inherent authority

Such power as reposes in an agent by virtue of the agency itself.

@ limited authority

Such authority as the agent has when he is bound by precise instructions.

@ naked authority

That arising where the principal delegates the power to the agent wholly for the benefit of the former.

@ ostensible authority

Such authority as a principal, intentionally or by want of ordinary care, causes or allows a third person to believe that the agent possesses. National Cash Register Co. v. Wichita Frozen Food Lockers, Tex.Civ.App., 172 S.W.2d 781, 787

See apparent authority.

@ presumptive authority

See implied authority.

@ special authority

That which is confined to an individual transaction. Such an authority does not bind the principal, unless it is strictly pursued.

@ unlimited authority

That possessed by an agent when he is left to pursue his own discretion

@