Court Opinion

ID: 9461102
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:05:52.010611+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:53.562940
License: Public Domain

PAUL X WILLIAMS, District Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.
The undisputed facts in this case show that the landowner, by written contract, listed lands for sale with the broker. The listing required that the broker on or before a designated day produce a buyer who was ready, able and willing to buy the land for the price and according to the terms of the listing. In my opinion the undisputed facts show that the broker produced such a buyer within the prescribed time and therefore is entitled to his commission.
It must be borne in mind that the written listing by the landowner did not require the landowner to sell. It obligated him to pay the broker a commission if and when the broker produced a qualified buyer on or before the prescribed date.
The language of the written listing is not in dispute. The fact that a ready, willing and “anxious” buyer was produced by the broker is not in dispute. In my opinion, the “ability” of the buyer to buy for cash was amply demonstrated and nothing in the trial Judge’s opinion indicated to the contrary. This is all that the broker was required to do to entitle him to his commission.
The trial court and the majority here hold that because a contract of sale between the landowner and the prospective buyer was not executed within the exclusive listing period and the cash selling price paid within that period the broker did not produce a ready, able and willing buyer and is not entitled to his pay. But the facts are to the contrary. They show that the listing recited a cash selling price with a delivery of possession date “to be agreed upon.” No obligation to pay the cash price would arise until a delivery of possession date was agreed upon because either actual delivery of possession or a contractual substitute for such delivery is essential to a sale of land. It is elementary that the buyer has no obligation to pay an agreed cash selling price unless and until the seller agrees to sell.
In this case the landowner, for reasons satisfactory to himself, began to equivocate just as soon as he realized the broker had produced a buyer ready, able and willing to buy. And he had the right to retain his land — certainly he had not obligated himself to sell it.
But the actual contract for the sale of the land is not before the Court. The contract before the Court is the listing contract where the landowner contracted to pay a broker’s commission when a ready, able and willing buyer was produced within the prescribed time.
In my opinion the undisputed proof shows that the broker in apt time produced such a buyer and the Court should order the landowner to pay the contracted commission. The workman is worthy of his hire.