Court Opinion

ID: 9601100
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:36:33.040873+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:49:39.895614
License: Public Domain

ON REHEARING NOBLE, Justice.  We are satisfied with the opinion ■originally filed in this case, but language appearing in Southwest Motel Brokers, Inc. v. Alamo Hotels, Inc., 72 N.M. 227, 382 P.2d 707, is said to be controlling and to require a different result in the instant case. We take this opportunity to correct an inadvertent erroneous statement in that opinion. Entirely by inadvertence, it was said in Southwest Motel Brokers that “[t]he burden was upon appellant and McKinley to establish by evidence in the record that appellees were not licensed real estate brokers in New Mexico.” The Statute, Secs. 67-24-19 to 67-24-35, N.M.S.A.1953, prohibits an action based upon a claimed real estate action except by one licensed as provided by law. The statute casts no burden upon a defendant to prove absence of a license but does place upon one claiming a real estate commission the burden of establishing that he was duly licensed when the alleged cause of action arose. The inadvertent statement relative to the burden of proof in Southwest Motel Brokers was unnecessary to, and the result reached in that case was not in any way based upon where the burden of proof of a license rested. That question was never reached because the decision there turned upon a finding that the action was for recovery of a commission for the sale of corporate stock. So that there may be no doubt, the statement above quoted from Southwest Motel Brokers, Inc. v. Alamo Hotels, Inc., supra, insofar as it purports to cast the burden upon a defendant to establish lack of a real estate license as a defense to an action for a real estate commission, is expressly overruled. Rehearing is denied. COMPTON, C. J., and CARMODY, CHAVEZ and MOISE, JJ., concur.