Case ID: ny-st-rep_28/html/0177-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Gerson Goldstein, Resp’t, v. George Walters, App’lt.
    
      (New York Common Pleas, General Term,
    
    
      Filed December 2, 1889.)
    
    Beokees—Commissions.
    Plaintiff endeavored to induce one T. to purchase land of plaintiff, but failed in getting him to agree to the price named. Defendant afterward sold for the price to one M., who purchased for T., but without knowledge of that fact. Held, that plaintiff was not entitled to commissions; that the mere fact that he had hazarded a prophecy that T. would accede to defendant’s terms did not aid him.
    
      Appeal from judgment of district court' in favor of plaintiff.
    Action to recover commissions as real estate broker for selling premises belonging to defendant.
    
      August L. Martin, for app’lt; David A. Sullivan, for resp’t.
   Per Curiam.

The plaintiff was not the procuring cause of sale. There is no doubt that he made fruitful efforts to induce-Thomas to buy the property, but he did not succeed. The proof is that Martin & Bay were the procuring cause of sale. The plaintiff utterly failed to induce Thomas, the purchaser, to give the price-that the defendant demanded and received for the property. Then Bay & Martin- succeeded in getting Thomas to agree to pay the-sum that the defendant had all the time named as his minimum price. The mere fact that he hazarded a prophecy that Thomas would at some future time accede to the defendant’s terms, does not at all aid the plaintiff. There is no room for charging collusion between the defendant and Martin & Bay nor had the defendant notice of anything that could apprise him that Thomas was the secret purchaser of the property. The defendant did not sell to Thomas, to whom the plaintiff was endeavoring to sail the-property. The sale was made to Martin, who professed to be, and was by the defendant believed to be, the purchaser. It is true that Martin bought for the benefit of Thomas, but that fact was studiously concealed from the defendant.

The plaintiff himself conceded in his letter that he was not entitled to the commission. He knew that he did not induce the purchaser to accept the terms on which the defendant agreed to sell, and finally did sell the property. It seems to be the opinion' of some of the justices of the district court that the broker who first brings the property to the notice of the purchaser is entitled to the commission even though the broker fails to obtain the price named by the seller, and though that price is afterwards obtained by the seller through the independent efforts of another broker. That erroneous view of the law seems to have led to the decision that was made in the court below.

Judgment reversed.

Larremore, Oh. J., Daly and Yak Hoesen, JJ., concur.