Case Name: HORSLEY v. WOODLEY
Court: Court of Appeals of Georgia
Jurisdiction: Georgia
Decision Date: 1912-10-09
Citations: 12 Ga. App. 456
Docket Number: 4119
Parties: HORSLEY v. WOODLEY.
Judges: 
Reporter: Georgia Appeals Reports
Volume: 12
Pages: 456–463

Head Matter:
4119.
HORSLEY v. WOODLEY.
Decided October 9, 1912.
ON REI-IEARING.
1. One can carry on the business of a real-estate dealer, within the meaning of that term, and, as such, be subject to the provisions of section 978 of the Civil Code, though he may not succeed in carrying through a single sale which he attempts to make. Likewise, one is a real-estate dealer who, on his own account, and as a business independent of that of another real-estate agent, engages for a consideration to aid others— whether the owners of the property cr their agents—in selling real estate which is offered for sale.
2. While it is the better practice to raise by plea, as a matter of affirm-, ative defense, the point that the plaintiff’s claim is founded upon an illegal or immoral consideration, still, upon the hearing of a motion for a new trial, the general assignment of error, averring that the verdict is contrary to law and without evidence to support it, is sufficient to demand an investigation of the evidence. If it appears, from a review of the evidence, either in the trial court or in this court, that the plaintiff’s demand' is void because the consideration was founded wholly on an immoral or illegal consideration, the verdict should be set aside. The law will not shut its eyes to the fact that the consideration of a contract is illegal, when that fact appears undisputed from the testimony, and the illegality of the consideration has not been expressly waived.
March 1, 1913.
Complaint; from-city court of Dawson—Judge M. C. Edwards. January 29, 1912.
W. II. Gurr, M. J. Yeomans, B. B. Marlin, for plaintiff in error.
E. A. Wilkinson, contra.

Opinion:
Russell, J.
The decision of this case is controlled by the ruling of this court in Ford v. Thomason, 11 Ga. App. 359 (75 S. E. 269). The suit was brought for commissions alleged to be due by the defendant for the plaintiff's services as real-estate agent in aiding another real-estate agent to make a sale. As it affirmatively appears that the plaintiff had not registered with the ordinary, nor paid the tax to the tax-collector, required by section 978 of the Civil Code (1910), he can not recover commissions accruing from the sale of real estate. Ford v. Thomason,supra. The court, therefore, erred in overruling the motion for a new trial.