Case ID: ohio-law-abs_6/html/0040-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "SULLIVAN, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

HROVAT v. KRALL.
    Ohio Appeals, 8th Dist., Cuyahoga Co.
    Decided Oct. 31, 1927.
    Syllabus by Editorial Staff.
    257. COMMISSION — For Sale of Real Estate — 182. Brokers — Broker not entitled to commission unless seller and buyer, whom he procured, enter into contract which is valid and enforcible.
    Error to Municipal Court.
    Judgment affirmed.
    S.J. Deutsch and Leopold Kushlan, Cleveland, for Hrovat.
    Harry F. Glide, Cleveland, for Krall.
    STATEMENT OF FACTS.
    There were two causes of action based upon what is claimed to be a valid and endoreible contract in wiiting, under the provisions of which it was stipulated that each party was to pay the agent a commission of $200 and if either party backed out of the deal, such party was to pay both commissions., The terms of the contract related to an exchange of equities in certain real estate located in the City of Cleveland.
    Under the terms of the contract, by an analysis thereof, there was a difference in equities amounting to $700, but there was no provision whatsoever as to how this sum of money was to be paid, or the manner in which it was to be paid, whether it was to be in cash by one payment or in numerous payments, or whether it was to be paid in installments evidenced by promissory notes or other proofs of indebtedness. On these matters the contract is absolutely silent, thus showing that upon a material and vital element in the contract there was no meeting of the minds.
   OPINION OF COURT.

The following is taken, verbatim, from the opinion.

SULLIVAN, J.

It is claimed that Carey, Admr. v. Conn, 107 OS. 113, governs. There is nothing in this holding which does violence to the general proposition of law that the broker or agent must bring the parties dealing together, and in order to bring them together in the transaction, their minds must meet on all material points involved in the transaction.

On page 11 the court, in Pfanz v. Humburg, 82 OS. I quote frqm Wilson v. Mason, 158 Ill., 304, 311 as follows:

“The true rule is that a broker is entitled to his commission if the purchaser presented by him and the vendor, his employer, enter into a valid, binding and enforcible contract * * * An agreement by a real estate broker to procure a purchaser not only implies that the purchaser shall be one able to comply, but that the seller and the purchaser must be bound to each other in a valid contract.”

It is our unanimous judgment that the court committed no error in sustaining the motion for judgment on the ground that the contract, which is the basis of the action, was unen-forcible by reason of its invalidity.

(Levine and Vickery, JJ., concur.)