Opinion ID: 1387773
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Counts III & IV

Text: Carver argues that: (1) it was error to find the agreement was ambiguous; (2) even if the agreement was ambiguous, it was error to submit Counts III and IV to the jury because the parties clearly intended that the ninety-day provision should not apply to lease extensions or expansions; and (3) the court's instructions erroneously allowed the jury to redetermine the issue of ambiguity. The agreement, when read as a whole, is ambiguous. Paragraph 2(d), which provides for commissions on extensions and expansions that occur during the term of the agreement, appears in a document entitled Schedule of Commissions. The Schedule of Commissions is expressly made subject to the Exclusive Leasing Agreement to which it is attached. The Exclusive Leasing Agreement provides for commissions on leases executed within ninety days after the agreement expires, if Leon negotiated with those tenants prior to expiration of the agreement, and if he had submitted a list of those tenants within 10 days following such expiration. Thus, the phrase during the term of the agreement found in Paragraph 2(d) can be read to mean either prior to the expiration date or prior to the end of the ninety-day period following the expiration date. Leon's understanding of the ambiguity was sufficient evidence to allow the jury to decide the intentions of the parties and to conclude further that the parties had intended the ninety-day provision to apply to extensions of term and expansions of space by existing tenants, and not simply to new tenants, as Carver contended. Contrary to Carver's assertions, the trial court's instructions on Counts III & IV did not allow or instruct the jury to redecide the issue of ambiguity. It explicitly charged the jury to determine the intent of the parties. The introductory explanation of the term ambiguous in the instruction was, at worst, harmless surplusage. An unnecessary instruction is not grounds for reversal if it does not mislead the jury. El Paso Electric Co. v. Pinkerton, 96 N.M. 473, 475, 632 P.2d 350, 352 (1981).
Leon's January 1983 ten-day letter listed the prospective tenants with whom Leon had dealt during the life of the agreement and included a reference to First City Financial Corporation    (5th & 6th Floor Expansion). Under Count IV, the jury awarded Leon's full commission on First City's March 1983 ten-year extension of its first-through-fourth-floor lease. It limited Leon's recovery under Count III, however, to commissions on the March 1983 expansion to the fifth and sixth floors only. Carver contends that Leon should recover no commission on the Count IV extension because Leon did not mention it specifically in his ten-day letter nor did he have any part in negotiating it. In his answer brief, Leon insists that the inclusion of First City's name in the ten-day letter, coupled with the fact that Leon had procured the original first-through-fourth-floor lease, satisfied the contractual requirements for a commission on the tenant's extension. On cross-appeal Leon maintains that because he had submitted a portion of the Count III expansion to First City before the agreement expired, he is entitled to full commissions on the entire expansion. A broker's right to a commission on a lease extension or expansion of space, which has been negotiated directly between lessor and lessee, is dependent upon the presence of an express agreement for such commission. E.g., Seay v. Bennett & Kahnweiler Associates, 73 Ill. App.3d 944, 945, 29 Ill.Dec. 912, 392 N.E.2d 609 (1979); Griffith v. Seco Co., 410 S.W.2d 691 (Mo. App. 1966). The jury's award of commissions on some of the March 1983 transactions necessarily included a determination that the parties intended the ninety-day provision to apply to transactions with existing tenants. The ninety-day provision allows a commission on property leased within ninety days after the agreement expires if the two previously mentioned conditions precedent have been met: (1) the broker has negotiated with or presented the property to the tenant before the agreement expires, and (2) the tenant's name appears in the broker's ten-day letter to the lessor. By its verdict the jury applied this provision to Paragraph 2(d) which allows commissions on extensions of term or expansions of space which occur  by virtue of provisions in the lease or through subsequent modification of such provisions. (Emphasis ours.) The jury had before it the provisions of the Executive Leasing Agreement, the parties' testimony as to their negotiations and intent, and the original first-through-fourth-floor First City lease containing a provision for extension of term. The jury could reasonably have concluded on that evidence that the March 1983 extension occurred pursuant to the provisions of the original lease (which had been procured by Leon), and that the ninety-day provision's requirement for some sort of prior negotiations between broker and tenant had thus been satisfied. Cf. Percy Galbreath & Son, Inc. v. Dehyco Co., 548 S.W.2d 664 (Tenn. App. 1976), cert. denied, March 14, 1977; Louis Schlesinger Co. v. Kresge Foundation, 388 F.2d 208, 211-12 (3d Cir.1968). On the other hand, the original First City lease made no provision for commissions on expansion of space. Consequently, it was not unreasonable for the jury to limit Leon's commissions under Count III to the fifth and sixth-floor rentals upon evidence that Leon had submitted only those portions of the building to First City prior to the expiration of the agreement.