ing of this statute, and also those crimes which may be punished by such imprisonment when the nature of the crime involved moral turpitude, and that "crimes whose penalty must be" imprisonment "in the county jail will be" held to be "infamous when the nature of the crime involves moral turpitude, and the penalty may be six months or more." Drazen v. New Haven Taxicab Co. 95 Conn. 500, 508, 111 Atl. 864. Since the penalty which could have been imposed for the offenses of which Kurtz was found guilty could not have been imprisonment in any Witnesses— credibility violation of Na tional Prohibiition Act. event, they do not come within our classification of infamous crimes covered by the provisions of our statute above referred to. It No hard and fast definition of moral turpitude can be given. must be left to the process of judicial inclusion and exclusion as the cases are reached, and as the standards of society change. Drazen v. New Haven Taxicab Co. supra, page 508 (111 Atl. 861). Among the recent cases in other jurisdictions we find these which hold that there was moral turpitude. An attorney who defrauded his partner (Re Cruickshank, 47 Cal. App. 496, 190 Pac. 1038); the violation of the law forbidding a public officer to retain any reward other than that allowed by law for doing anything appertaining to his duties as such (State ex rel. Griffith v. Anderson, 117 Kan. 117, 230 Pac. 317); the making of a false charge against a judge, of a misuse of his judicial office and misconduct in office, which was unjustified, and without probable cause (Re Graves, 64 Cal. App. 176, 221 Pac. 411); the sale by a physician in violation of law, of morphine for other than medicinal purposes, to an habitual user thereof (White v. Andrew, 70 Colo. 50, 197 Pac. 564); the engaging by an attorney in a conspiracy for the purpose of hindering his country while at war, from procuring by recruiting or enlistment, the military force deemed essential to the carrying on of war, contrary to the statute; in this case the court held: "That such conduct on his part would involve moral obliquity and constitute a base offense against his fellow men and his country entirely regardless of statute prohibiting it, cannot, it seems to us, be seriously questioned" O'Connell, 184 Cal. 584, 194 Pac. 1010), and the making, by a citizen of the United States, at a time when our country is at war, knowingly and willfully, of false statements with intent to interfere with the success of its military and naval forces, and with intent to promote the success of its enemies, or attempts to cause disloyalty, insubordination, mutiny, and refusal of duties in its military and naval forces, or willfully obstructs, or attempts to obstruct, its recruiting and enlistment service, is conduct involving moral turpitude (Re Kerl, 32 Idaho, 737, 8 A.L.R. 1259, 188 Pac. 40). (Re The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land. Not alone jurists, but publicists the country over, are in agreement that, as interpreted by our Supreme Court, it has been a mightier influence in maintaining our government, and in helping it to meet the problems it has been confronted with, than any other single influence. Our country and our Constitution are inseparable. The Constitution has held our past; it now holds our present; and, if we keep to its defined course, it will sustain our future. The National Prohibition (104 Conn. 257, 132 Atl. 540.) Law and the state laws passed in aid of the enforcement of the 18th Amendment are vitally necessary to the life and strength of this Amendment. Without them it must fail in its purpose. The violation of these laws is a violation of the Constitution of the United States. If one provision can be violated with impunity, another soon will be. If one who gives aid to the enemy of his country in time of war is guilty of moral turpitude, how may we distinguish the man who in time of peace, by his deliberate course, helps to destroy the Constitution. It is indeed true that many do not see or feel that the violation of the liquor law is undermining the most vital of all our governmental institutions, the Constitution of the United States. Opinions may differ as to the wisdom of the law, but there can be no such difference as to the duty of the citizen. Courts will not look at violations of that law with easy disregard of the baseness of the act, the unchecked effect of which is fraught with so serious a public evil, and is so destructive of the people's regard for the law of the land. Crimes of this character are not ordinary crimes. They are violations of those duties which every citizen owes to society of which he is a part and the country of which he is a part. Citizens who disregard those high obligations, and are convicted in the courts of their own country or state, are not on a par with loyal citizens. Their offenses involve moral turpitude, and, if the other condition is present the penalty of imprisonment which must be six months or more-they are guilty of a crime which the law denominates as infamous, and the record of conviction becomes admissible to affect their credibility as witnesses in the courts, under the provisions of General Statutes, § 5705. The following are cases which support this view in other jurisdictions: State ex rel. Young v. Edmundson, 103 Or. 243, 204 Pac. 619; Rudolph v. United States, 55 App. D. C. 362, 40 A.L.R. 1042, 6 F. (2d) 487. A case in which the other view is taken is Ex parte Marshall, 207 Ala. 566, 25 A.L.R. 338, 93 So. 471. Counsel for the appellee rely upon the fact that we cited in the Drazen Case, among a number of other instances of crimes which, in other jurisdictions, had been held not to involve moral turpitude, the case of an offense against the liquor law which arose prior to the National Prohibition Act. This was done to present all views, and for the same reason we now cite Ex parte Marshall. It did not mean that we adopted the ruling in that case either as correct or as applicable to a case arising under the National Prohibition Act. We hold, then, that violations of the 18th Amendment necessarily involve moral turpitude. The ruling ude-violation by which the con- of National Proviction of Kurtz -moral turpi hibition Act. was excluded by the trial court was right. Though the offense involved moral turpitude, one of the two necessary elements of infamous crimes, the penalty prescribed did not involve imprisonment for six months. or more, so the second element was lacking. famous crime. The statute (Gen. Stat. § 5705) admits proof of convictions for infamous crimes to affect the credit of a witness. Treason, felony, and the crimen falsi, as at Criminal lawcommon law, includ- definition of ining all crimes for which the punishment prescribed must be imprisonment in the state prison, are infamous crimes, and this term includes, in addition, all crimes or misdemeanors which in their nature involve moral turpitude, and must be punished by imprisonment in jail for a term which may be six months or more. The fifth reason of appeal relates to certain "conclusions" of the trial court, so-called, 41 to 47 inclusive. Of these, only 41 and 47 are conclusions from subordinate facts. Para graph 41 of the finding as a conclusion from the subordinate facts presents a question which is clearly of controlling importance in this case, 264 AMERICAN LAW REPORTS, ANNOTATED. for, if the defendant was not the to principal. the agent of the Thus the key to the solution of ¶ this case is the validity of 41 of the court's finding, and our answer to the question which confronts us must be found by an examination of the finding as finally corrected by us. The sixth reason of appeal relates to ¶¶ 42-44, and 46 of the finding, which the trial court held to be conclusions. In reality, these were findings of fact. An examination of the entire record before us discloses a sharp conflict of testimony as to the points involved in these findings. As to each of these findings it must be said that there is evidence from which the court could reasonably have reached the conclusion which, it did, and they must therefore stand, for we cannot weigh the evidence findings of fact. and say that the conclusion of the trial court was wrong. Appeal-conclusiveness of We proceed to examine the conclusions stated in ¶¶ 41 and 47 in the light of the finding as corrected. It appears that the defendant had long been in the real estate business in Waterbury, and the plaintiff had purchased from him, or through his agency, several pieces of real estate in that city, and in all these instances he had received his compensation from and acted as the agent of the seller, and not for the plain with tiff. On October 12th, in response to (104 Conn. 257, 132 Atl. 540.) that all the deeds were prepared at the office of his own counsel, met her at the bank where the necessary cash was obtained by a mortgage of the property to the bank, and delivered to her the final papers. "The plaintiff acted throughout the transaction without legal advice, and relied fully upon the defendant to attend to and protect her interests in the matter." Record, p. 18, § 22. The finding shows that all this time, while her interests had thus been looked after by the defendant, she was unaware, and he concealed from her the fact, that he had an interest personally in the transaction as a buyer and a seller of the property. He not only permitted, but induced, her to believe that he was acting for her and solely in her interest, and on the facts disclosed by the finding she was fully justified in so supposing. One of the many comprehensive definitions of agency is that found in Mechem's Agency, § 1: "A legal relation founded upon the express or implied contract of the parties, or created by law, by virtue of which one party-the agent-is employed and authorized to represent and act for the other-the principal-in business dealings with third persons." Harkins v. Murphy, 51 Tex. Civ. App. 568, 112 S. W. 137; Steele v. Lawyer, 47 Wash. 266, 275, 91 Pac. 958. "An agency is defined as a contract either express or implied by which one of the parties confides to the other the management of some business to be transacted in his name, or on his account, and by which the other assumes to do the business, and to render an account of it." 2 Kent, Com. p. 612. While an agency is thus generally the result of contract, express or implied, it is not always necessary to find all the elements of a contract in order to establish the relation. Even where one undertakes to act for another without compensation, and the element of consideration necessary for a contract is lacking, if he does in fact enter upon the undertaking, the relation of agency between him and the party for whom he is acting is created. 2 C. J. 419, and citations. When the plaintiff visited the defendant on the 15th of October, and requested him to undertake to get the property for her, and the defendant, by his concealment of his knowledge of the matter, led her to believe that he was free to act in her behalf, and did so by pretending to look up the matter for her, and telephoned her the following day that he had done so, she was justified in believing that he was in fact representing her, and his subsequent conduct down to the consummation of the sale, so far as this was disclosed to her by him, was properly a confirmation of that belief on her part, and she acted upon that belief throughout. Under these circumstances, a fiduciary relation was created which the law does not allow the defendant to tablishment of tion-secret violate to the dam- Brokers-esage of the plaintiff. fiduciary relaIt is not necessary profit-validity. to enter into meticulous definitions of the relation, or seek to determine whether it arose by an express or implied contract between the parties, or whether the defendant should be treated as estopped by his conduct from denying that the relation existed. The relation need not arise from an express appointment and an acceptance, but is often established from the words and conduct of the parties and the circumstances of the particular case. Martin v. Webb, 110 U. S. 7, 28 L. ed. 49, 3 Sup. Ct. Rep. 428; Hill v. Helton, 80 Ala. 528, 1 So. 340; Trundy v. Farrar, 32 Me. 225; Lash v. Ames, 171 Mass. 487, 50 N. E. 996; Long v. Colburn, 11 Mass. 97, 6 Am. Dec. 160; Keyes v. Union Pacific Tea Co. 81 Vt. 420, 427, 71 Atl. 201. Principal and agent-how relation established. The defendant, in brief and argument, dwells upon the contention that the plaintiff "must have known" that the defendant "was not her hired agent," and argues from this that there could not have been 266 an agency by express or implied contract. There is, as we have seen, nothing to show whether she expected to pay the defendant for his services or not, but compensation is not a necessary element. -necessity of compensation. Neither can we concur in the claim of the defendant that the essential elements of an estoppel, many of which were presented in Herzog v. Cooke, 99 Conn. 366, 121 Atl. 868; C. & C. Electric Motor Co. v. Frisbie & Co. 66 Conn. 67, 33 Atl. 604; Goldberg v. Parker, 87 Conn. 99, 46 L.R.A. (N.S.) 1097, 87 Atl. 555, Ann. Cas. 1914C, 1059; Monterosso v. Kent, 96 Conn. 346, 113 Atl. 922; Lewis v. Lewis, 76 Conn. 586, 57 Atl. 735, and other cases in this state cited by him, are wanting in this case. In fact, the statement the defendant quotes from the opinion in the Frisbie Case applies with rather striking effect to the circumstances disclosed by the finding in this case, viz.: "When one person by anything which he does or says, or abstains from doing or saying, intentionally causes or permits another person to believe a thing to be true, and to act upon such belief otherwise than but for that belief he would have acted, neither the person first mentioned nor his representative in interest is allowed, in any suit or proceeding between himself and such person or his representative in interest, to deny the truth of that thing.' Our conclusion is not only that there was a fiduciary relation between the plaintiff and defendant, but that the facts show agency by contract. In any Estoppel-to event, the defendant deny fiduciary is now estopped by relation. his conduct from denying the fiduciary relation. It cannot be seriously disputed that the conduct of the defendant above referred to was not such as the law requires of an agent. It results that the conclusion of the trial court, as stated in ¶ 47, was sound and just, and the defendant became liable to the plaintiff for the $2,000 damages which she suffered as a result of that conduct, with interest thereon as found by the trial court. Twiss v. Herbst, 95 Conn. 273, 111 Atl. 201; Mucke v. Solomon, 79 Conn. 297, 64 Atl. 738; Schleifenbaum v. Rund baken, 81 Conn. 623, 71 Atl. 899; Herzog v. Cooke, supra; Burns v. Whitford, 98 Conn. 715, 120 Atl. 565; 9 C. J. 536 et seq. The sixth and last reason of appeal with its subdivisions is covered by the conclusion to which we have arrived, and further discussion is un necessary. There is no error. ANNOTATION. Violation of liquor law as infamous crime or offense involving moral turpi tude. [Intoxicating Liquors, § 55.] fect their credibility as witnesses under a statute providing that conviction of crime may be shown for the purpose of affecting the credibility of a witness. In Re Bartos (1926; D. C.) 13 F. (2d) 138, it was held that the offense of manufacturing intoxicating liquor in violation of the National Prohibition Act was an offense involving moral turpitude, and justified the disbarment of an attorney at law, al |