Court Opinion

ID: 9620695
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:46:03.082837+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:53.149668
License: Public Domain

AREND, Justice
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I agree with my brothers that the appellant had fully performed under the broker’s employment contract. I must disagree with them when they hold that, notwithstanding full performance on the broker’s part, the trial court did not err in denying recovery of the commission agreed upon.
The opinion of my colleagues is, in my view, lamentably vague with respect to the basis for denying recovery. Several close readings of the opinion have failed to inform me as to the essential facts and the doctrines they rely upon. It is for this reason that I decline to take issue with particular contentions, both factual and and legal, as advanced in the opinion.
I am content to rest this dissent upon my conviction that the great weight of the evidence showed clearly that the sale failed of consummation because it was appellee, Mrs. Barber, who refused to go through with it and that it was not the vendees who balked. And the reasons for Mrs. Barber’s refusal to sell did not include, in my view of the evidence, that of solicitude towards the vendees. When such is the situation I do not believe any court should allow the employer of a broker to resist successfully an action to recover the broker’s commission, notwithstanding the broker was aware that there existed some defect of title which might dissuade a prospective vendee from buying but which did not in fact so dissuade him. In short, I would not allow Mrs. Barber to take advantage of the so-called negligent conduct of Gale when that conduct did not occasion any loss to her.
I would reverse the judgment below and order judgment to be entered for the plaintiff in this action.