Case ID: ill-app_192/html/0127-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Gridley", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Samuel Burns, Defendant in Error, v. William A. Sullivan, Plaintiff in Error.
    Gen. No. 20,266.
    (Not to be reported in full.)
    Error to the Municipal Court of Chicago; the Hon. John J. Rooney, Judge, presiding. Heard in the Branch Appellate Court at the October term, 1914.
    Reversed with finding of facts.
    Opinion filed March 23, 1915.
    Rehearing denied April 8, 1915.
    Statement of the Case.
    Action by Samuel Burns, plaintiff, against William A. Sullivan, defendant, to .recover commissions for plaintiff’s services as broker in procuring the sale of defendant’s house and lot.
    The material facts are, in substance, as follows: Defendant listed certain property for sale at seventy-three hundred dollars with plaintiff and with several other real estate brokers early in 1913, informing them that he would pay commissions to the broker making the sale. Plaintiff mentioned the property to one Beilley, who wished to purchase a house in that vicinity, and about March 18, 1913, plaintiff showed Beilley the premises and house. Beilley made an offer of seven thousand dollars, which defendant refused. Subsequently plaintiff got Beilley to make an offer of seventy-one hundred dollars, but defendant also refused this offer and plaintiff so told Beilley. Thereupon plaintiff ceased his negotiations with Beilley, and, according to Beilley’s testimony, he (Beilley) gave up the idea of buying the house and commenced looking for another house. Subsequently one Takken, another real estate broker, who had been trying to sell Beilley a house in a different location upon being informed by Beilley that he (Beilley) had previously looked at defendant’s property but had given up the idea of purchasing it because of the price, entered negotiations with Reilley and defendant and shortly procured from Reilley an offer of seventy-two hundred dollars, (two-thonsand dollars down and balance in deferred payments) for the property which he finally succeeded in getting defendant to accept. The contract of sale was presented to both parties by Takken and signed by them, and defendant paid Takken one hundred and eighty dollars as commissions.
    Abstract of the Decision.
    Brokers, § 88
      
      —when evidence insufficient to establish right to commission. Evidence in action to recover commission for services as broker in sale of real estate examined and held to establish that another than plaintiff was the procuring cause of the sale.
    To reverse a judgment for plaintiff for one hundred and eighty dollars, defendant prosecutes this writ of error.
    Sonnenschein, Berkson & Fishell, for plaintiff in error.
    Charles A. Williams and Melville R. Adams, for defendant in error.
    
      
      See Illinois Notes Digest, Vols. XI to XV, and Cumulative Quarterly, same topic and section number.
    
   Mr. Justice Gridley

delivered the opinion of the court.