Court Opinion

ID: 9454292
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:42:26.02809+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:03.683550
License: Public Domain

LUMBARD, Chief Judge
(dissenting):
I dissent.
While I must admire the ingenuity of the majority opinion I do not believe it is appropriate for appellate judges to go to such lengths to rescue a plaintiff’s case. Plaintiff’s counsel elected to have the case go to the jury with the five interrogatories that Judge Pollack posed. Counsel did not request that the theory upon which the majority now awards judgment be submitted to the jury,1 and this court should not attempt to predict what the jury’s verdict would have been had this theory been submitted. In any event I feel that the retrospective surmise of the majority is improbable. It seems very likely to me that the jury proceeded upon the theory of ratification, and we are all agreed that the evidence could not sustain a recovery on this ground.
There is another reason why we should not conclude that Judge Pollack’s first interrogatory did not fully submit to the jury the contract basis of plaintiff’s complaint. Judge Pollack’s interrogatory followed very closely the wording of this court’s prior opinion in this case. We said that to get to the jury on its contract claim the plaintiff had to offer sufficient evidence to support a finding, inter alia, that:
“there was a promise on Gulf’s part, if a lease agreement for such office space were consummated, that the plaintiff would be designated by Gulf to the lessor Rock-Uris as the broker in the transaction * * 386 F.2d at 165.
Judge Pollack’s first interrogatory is set out at page 525 of the majority opinion. I believe that it fairly submitted to the jury the holding of this court respecting the contract claim. We should not, at this late date, in effect modify our prior holding, particularly since plaintiff did not suggest to the district court the theory now adopted by my colleagues. Any ambiguities in the wording of the first interrogatory were clarified by the court’s charge, to which no objections are raised by the plaintiff.
Accordingly, I would affirm the district court order which set aside the verdict and directed entry of judgment for the defendant.

. The only objection raised by plaintiff’s counsel to the first interrogatory, and his only request for a further interrogatory, is contained in this somewhat obscure passage :
“I ask your Honor to charge the jury and I ask your Honor to leave another special question to the jury: that aside from a specific contract between Gulf and Studley, that Gulf would name Studley as the broker!,] !t]here was an obligation of Gulf to act in good faith. That is a separate thing, and just having Studley be named as broker.” Appendix at 95a.
The court did charge that “it was the obligation of the defendant to act in good faith * * Appendix at 98a. Counsel’s objection did not call attention to the alleged ambiguities found by the majority to be inherent in the first interrogatory.