PRINCIPAL
principal,adj. Chief; primary; most important.
principal, n. 1. One who authorizes another to act on his or her behalf as an agent. Cf. AGENT. [Cases: Principal and Agent 1, 130. C.J.S. Agency §§ 2, 4–6, 23, 25–27, 33, 38–40, 58, 391; Architects§ 21.]
apparent principal. A person who, by outward manifestations, has made it reasonably appear to a third person that another is authorized to act as the person’s agent.
disclosed principal. A principal whose identity is revealed by the agent to a third party. • A disclosed principal is always liable on a contract entered into by the agent with the principal’s authority, but the agent is usu. not liable. [Cases: Principal and Agent 92–137. C.J.S. Agency §§ 44, 47, 73, 143–165; Architects § 21–22, 24.]
partially disclosed principal. A principal whose existence — but not actual identity — is revealed by the agent to a third party. [Cases: Principal and Agent 138–146. C.J.S. Agency §§ 166, 369–371, 385, 387–388, 393, 412–419, 448–451.]
undisclosed principal. A principal whose identity is kept secret by the agent; a principal for whom the other party has no notice that the agent is acting. • An undisclosed principal and the agent are both liable on a contract entered into by the agent with the principal’s authority. [Cases: Principal and Agent 138–146. C.J.S. Agency §§ 166, 369–371, 385, 387–388, 393, 412–419, 448–451.]
2. One who commits or participates in a crime. Cf. ACCESSORY(2); ACCOMPLICE (2). [Cases: Criminal Law 59–67. C.J.S. Criminal Law §§ 127–136, 143, 998–999, 1002.] “The student should notice that in criminal law the word ‘principal’ suggests the very converse of the idea which it represents in mercantile law. In the former, as we have seen, an accessory proposes an act, and the ‘principal’ carries it out. But in the law of contract, and in that of tort, the ‘principal’ only authorizes an act, and the ‘agent’ carries it out. Where the same transaction is both a tort and a crime, this double use of the word may cause confusion. For example, if, by an innkeeper’s directions, his chamber-maid steals jewels out of a guest’s portmanteau, the maid is the ‘principal’ in a crime, wherein her master is an accessory before the fact; whilst she is also the agent in a tort, wherein her master is the ‘principal’.” J.W. Cecil Turner, Kenny’s Outlines of Criminal Law 89 (16th ed. 1952).
principal in the first degree. The perpetrator of a crime. — Also termed first-degree principal. [Cases: Criminal Law 61, 78. C.J.S. Criminal Law §§ 130, 143–144, 148.]
“By a principal in the first degree, we mean the actual offender — the man in whose guilty mind lay the latest blamable mental cause of the criminal act. Almost always, of course, he will be the man by whom this act itself was done. But occasionally this will not be so; for the felony may have been committed by the hand of an innocent agent who, having no blamable intentions in what he did, incurred no criminal liability by doing it. In such a case the man who instigates this agent is the real offender; his was the last mens rea that preceded the crime, though it did not cause it immediately but mediately.” J.W. Cecil Turner, Kenny’s Outlines of Criminal Law 85–86 (16th ed. 1952).
principal in the second degree. One who helped the perpetrator at the time of the crime. — Also termed accessory at the fact; second-degree principal. See ABETTOR. [Cases: Criminal Law 63, 78. C.J.S. Criminal Law §§ 132, 143–144, 148.]
“The distinction between principals in the first and second degrees is a distinction without a difference except in those rare instances in which some unusual statute has provided a different penalty for one of these than for the other. A principal in the first degree is the immediate perpetrator of the crime while a principal in the second degree is one who did not commit the crime with his own hands but was present and abetting the principal. It may be added, in the words of Mr. Justice Miller, that one may perpetrate a crime, not only with his own hands, but ‘through the agency of mechanical or chemical means, as by instruments, poison or powder, or by an animal, child, or other innocent agent’ acting under his direction.” Rollin M. Perkins & Ronald N. Boyce, Criminal Law 736 (3d ed. 1982) (quoting Beausoliel v. United States, 107 F.2d 292, 297 (D.C. Cir. 1939)).
3. One who has primary responsibility on an obligation, as opposed to a surety or indorser.
4. The corpus of an estate or trust. [Cases: Trusts 1. C.J.S. Trover and Conversion §§ 1–9, 14–18.]
5. The amount of a debt, investment, or other fund, not including interest, earnings, or profits.
[Blacks Law 8th]