Ordinarily an agent is without authority to bind his principal by the employment of a broker to effect a sale. Bennett v. Howes, 15 Daily (N. Y.), 43, 2 N. Y. S. 717; Jenkins v. Funk, 33 Fed. 915; Craver v. House (Mo. App. '09), 120 S. W. 686; Sain v. St. John, 152 S. W. 284, 105 Ark. 680, 43 L. R. A. (N. S.) 796; Sarensen v. Smith, 129 P. 757, 65 Or. 78, 51 L. R. A. (N. S.) 612, Ann. Cas. 1915, A. 927; Judg. Aff. on Rehearing, 131 P. 1022, 65 Or. 78, 51 L. R. A. (N. S.) 612; Ann. Cas. 1915, A. 1127; Ster-ritt v. Shoemaker, 47 App. D. C. 455. Even authority to take any steps necessary to sell the property is insufficient to authorize an agent to employ a broker to effect a sale. Carroll v. Tucker, 2 Misc. (N. Y.), 397, 21 N. Y. S. 952; however, a non-resident owner employing a non-resident agent to sell, impliedly authorizes the latter to employ a broker or sub-agent. Eastland v. Money, 36 Tex. Civ. App. 147, 81 S. W. 574. And whenever an agent given authority to sell land exercises his discretion as to the price, etc., he may employ a real estate broker to find a purchaser, and a sale by him will be enforced where the agent was required to obtain his commission in addition to the price fixed, although the agent may have been requested by his principal not to employ a sub-agent. Renwick v. Bancroft, 56 Iowa, 527, 9 N. W. 367. If an agent employs a sub-agent for his principal and by his authority, expressed or implied, then the sub-agent is the agent of the principal, and is directly responsible to the principal for his conduct, and if damage results from the conduct of such sub-agent, the agent is only responsible in case he has not exercised due care in the selection of the sub-agent. But if the agent, having undertaken to transact the business of his principal, employs a sub-agent, on his own account, to assist him 'in what he has undertaken to do, he does so at his own risk and there is no privity between such agent and the principal. The sub-agent is, therefore, the agent of the agent only and is responsible to him for his conduct, while the agent is responsible to the principal for the manner in which the business has been done, whether by himself or his servant or his agent. Mechem on Agency, Sec. 197; Council v. U. S. Inv. Co., 143 P. 829, 26 Colo. App. 284.

Sec. 11a, When not employed, sub-agent not entitled to compensation.

Where a farm, placed in the hands of agents for sale, was sold by a third person who heard that it was on the market in a casual conversation with one of the partners of the agency, he was not such a sub-agent as will enable the procuring of a commission on the sale, where he did not know that his informant was a partner, and who made no express agreement to become their sub-agent. Kruse & Bishop v. Hauser, 133 N. W. 1067, 153 Iowa, 661.