Title: City of Birmingham v. Sansing Sales of Birmingham, Inc.

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

547 So. 2d 464 (1989)
CITY OF BIRMINGHAM
v.
SANSING SALES OF BIRMINGHAM, INC.
No. 88-476.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
June 9, 1989.
*465 Robert A. Jones, Jr. and LaVerne D. Lewis, Birmingham, for appellant.
James M. Tingle and Thomas B. Miller of Tingle, Sexton, Murvin, Watson & Bates, Birmingham, for appellee.
HOUSTON, Justice.
The City of Birmingham ("City") commenced this action in the Circuit Court of Jefferson County, seeking to preliminarily enjoin Sansing Sales of Birmingham, Inc. ("Sansing"), from conducting business within the City until Sansing had paid all delinquent and unpaid license fees and penalties. The City's request for a preliminary injunction was denied, conditioned on Sansing's posting a $5,000 bond. After hearing ore tenus testimony, the trial court held that Sansing was a "`merchandise broker' as that term is defined in Section 164(b) of the License Tax Law of the City of Birmingham when it negotiate[d] a sale of goods between a supplier and a customer and [had] the goods shipped directly to the customer by the supplier." The City's motion for a new trial was denied, and the City appeals.
Under the "ore tenus rule," the trial court's judgment is presumed correct and will be reversed by this Court only if the judgment is found to be plainly and palpably wrong after a consideration of all of the evidence and all reasonable inferences that can logically be drawn from the evidence. See King v. Travelers Ins. Co., 513 So. 2d 1023 (Ala.1987); Robinson v. Hamilton, 496 So. 2d 8 (Ala.1986). The trial court's judgment will be affirmed if, under any reasonable aspect of the evidence, there is credible evidence to support the judgment. McCrary v. Butler, 540 So. 2d 736 (Ala.1989); Jones v. Jones, 470 So. 2d 1207 (Ala.1985).
The issue before us is whether the trial court was plainly and palpably wrong in finding that Sansing was a "merchandise broker" within the meaning of Section 164(b). We hold that the trial court was not plainly and palpably wrong.
The trial court made the following findings and entered the following judgment:
"Sections 164 and 165 read as follows:
"164MERCHANDISE BROKER OR AGENT
The City contends that Sansing's sales transactions were indicative of a "retailer" within the meaning of that term as used in Section 165, not indicative of a "merchandise broker" within the meaning of Section 164(b).
The most important determining factor of what constitutes a "broker" is whether the party is dealing for itself or for another. A broker may by contract have title to the property pass through it (though usually it does not), and it may by contract collect from the consumer, but it does not deal on its own account. City of *467 Birmingham v. Hoffmann & Robinson, 262 Ala. 104, 77 So. 2d 354 (1955); King & Boozer v. State, 241 Ala. 557, 3 So. 2d 572 (1941), rev'd on other grounds, 314 U.S. 1, 62 S. Ct. 43, 86 L. Ed. 3 (1941). The fact that the invoices indicated that Sansing purchased the equipment from the manufacturer and then sold that equipment to the contractor is not necessarily inconsistent with the testimony that it purchased the equipment as a broker. Rather, the testimony was such that the trial court was justified in finding that: 1) Sansing never gave the contractor any guarantees or warranties for the equipment (the manufacturer provided those guarantees and warranties); 2) Sansing transacted its business as a broker, representing the manufacturers, whom it charged a commission for its service pursuant to an agreement between them (see City of Birmingham v. Hoffmann & Robinson, supra) and acting as a negotiator in the sale of equipment without having actual custody of that equipment (see Stratford v. City Council, 110 Ala. 619, 20 So. 127 (1895)); 3) Sansing was not acting for itself in doing so, even though it was in name the purchaser and even though it was indebted for the agreed price; 4) Sansing had no power of disposition of the property other than delivery to the contractor; 5) it never used the equipment as its own; 6) it had no control over the price of the equipment or its commission (the manufacturer set both the equipment price and Sansing's commission); and 7) Sansing merely took an essential step for the contractor in the transaction by which the contractor acquired title to the equipment for the construction project. (See King & Boozer v. State, supra, as to items 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.)
For the foregoing reasons, we find that the trial court's judgment was not plainly and palpably wrong, and we affirm.
AFFIRMED.
HORNSBY, C.J., and JONES, SHORES and KENNEDY, JJ., concur.