Case ID: ny-st-rep_48/html/0516-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Ehrlich, Ch. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Eva Brumfield, Resp’t, v. The Pottier & Stymus Mfg. Co., App’lt.
    
      (City Court of New York, General Term,
    
    
      Filed October 24, 1892.)
    
    1. Brokers—Commissions.
    The employment of a broker does not preclude the owner from making other efforts to sell or rent, and if without the broker a sale or renting is effected the broker gets nothing.
    S. Same—Evidence.
    While evidence as to what other persons did in the way of bringing about the sale or letting of the premises for which plaintiff claims commissions is relevant, evidence as to what the owner said to such persons in the absence of plaintiff is immaterial.
    Appeal from judgment entered on verdict in favor of plaintiff, and from an order denying a motion for a new trial.
    
      Brewster Kissam, for app’lt; Denison & Hall, for resp’t.
   Ehrlich, Ch. J.

The employment of a broker does not preclude the owner from making other efforts to sell or rent, and if without the broker a sale or renting is effected, the broker, as matter of course, gets nothing.

The question at issue here was whether the plaintiff was the procuring cause of the letting, and the j ury on the evidence found that she was, a finding which negatives the idea that any other agency co-operated to bring about the result.

The evidence was sufficiently strong to warrant the finding made by the jury, and their verdict should stand unless error was committed in excluding testimony tending to prove that othqr agencies brought about the result finally reached.

The trial judge did not exclude evidence of any fact tending to show what other brokers or persons did in the premises, or what they, accomplished with reference to the letting for which brokerage was claimed.

The evidence excluded was as to conversations with other persons in the absence of the plaintiff. What was said to them by the defendant’s officers was immaterial.

While what such other persons did (whether employed or not) in the way of bringing about the letting for which the plaintiff claims compensation was relevant; indeed, might be controlling, the evidence excluded was not of this material character, and its exclusion was not error requiring correction or a. new trial.

It follows that the judgment and order appealed from must be affirmed, with costs.

McCarthy, J., concurs.