Court Opinion

ID: 9571680
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:34:12.600008+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:30:48.058892
License: Public Domain

ROSE, Justice,
dissenting, with whom CARDINE, Justice, joins.
“Real estate brokers and salesmen are licensed by the State of Wyoming and required to meet high standards of honesty, integrity, trustworthiness and competency. Theirs is a regulated profession. Failure to satisfy those standards is ground for suspension or revocation of a real estate broker’s or salesperson’s license. An act licensing real estate agents must be construed in the light of an obvious purpose of protecting the public in the handling of important and valuable transactions relating to real property. Toavs v. State, Wyo., 635 P.2d 1172 (1981).” (Emphasis added.) Hagar v. Mobley, Wyo., 638 P.2d 127, 136 (1981).
Because I believe that the finding of incompetency and the assessment of the statutory penalty against appellants by the trial court are supported by the evidence and promote the purpose of the Real Estate License Act of 1971, §§ 33-28-101 to 33-28-117, W.S.1977, as set out in Hagar v. Mobley, supra, I would have affirmed.
We are asked, in this case, to construe § 33-28-1ll(a)(ix), W.S.1977, which authorizes certain sanctions where the licensee is found guilty of:
“Any conduct in a real estate transaction which demonstrates bad faith, dishonesty, untrustworthiness or incompetency.” (Emphasis added.)
By its plain language, the statute penalizes conduct rising to the level of incompetency in a particular transaction. The majority recognize that a single act of misconduct under certain circumstances can suffice to demonstrate incompetency, and this concept is supported by decisions from other jurisdictions. Greene v. Real Estate Commission, D.C.App., 263 A.2d 634 (1970); Lewis Realty, Inc. v. Wisconsin Real Estate Brokers’ Board, 6 Wis.2d 99, 94 N.W.2d 238 (1959); Goodley v. New Jersey Real Estate Commission, 29 N.J.Super. 178, 102 A.2d 65 (1954). However, the majority appear to embrace a standard of “willful misconduct” to be applied in the determination of incompetency in a single transaction such as the transaction involved in the case at bar. See the majority’s reliance on Van Ettinger v. Pappin, 180 Mont. 1, 588, P.2d 988 (1978).
I am unable to agree that the legislature, in enacting this law to protect the public from the inept handling of real estate transactions, intended to place such a stringent burden of proof on the complainant. Van Ettinger v. Pappin, supra, upon which the majority rely, is the only case that I have been able to find which requires proof of willful or intentional behavior to support the imposition of a penalty under the real estate license act. Most courts, in construing statutes which regulate professional conduct, distinguish between punishable incompetence and intentional acts of wrongdoing. Helm v. Warner, Ky.App., 597 S.W.2d 159, 160 (1980).
For example, in Goodley v. New Jersey Real Estate Commission, supra, the corporate seller of real property had obtained a survey which was inconsistent with a title policy on the property as well as with the deed into the grantor. The licensed real estate broker, who was also president of the corporate grantor, prepared a warranty deed which, by map and references to the map, purported to convey the tract of land as indicated by the survey. The court up*844held the commission’s finding that such negligence amounted to incompetency:
“ * * * He should have ascertained why the exception set forth in the title policy and the deed did not show up on the survey. We conclude there was sufficient proof of negligence by him in connection with his profession, to sustain a finding of incompetency.” 102 A.2d at 67.
In Greene v. Real Estate Commission, supra, the licensed real estate broker had accepted from a client a deposit of $600, but had failed to promptly return the deposit when it appeared that the sale could not be made. In affirming the 15-day suspension of the broker’s license, the court said:
“The Commission could properly conclude upon its findings that petitioner’s careless and callous failure to inform his client of the reasons for the difficulty in repaying the deposit, of which he was a trustee, [citation] constituted such incompetence and untrustworthy conduct as to endanger the public interest.” 263 A.2d at 635.
Lewis Realty, Inc. v. Wisconsin Real Estate Brokers’ Board, supra, represents another instance in which a court upheld the administrative board’s finding of incompetence in the absence of willful misconduct. There, the court concluded that incompetency was demonstrated where the broker obtained an unsigned purchase offer from prospective buyers. The court affirmed the board’s order suspending the broker’s salesman’s license for one month.
In the instant case, the trial court found that appellants had several opportunities to discover the misdescription of the property since they had developed the project and were familiar with maps, plans and specifications. The trial court concluded that the failure of appellants to double check and cross check the legal description to insure its accuracy amounted to incompetency. In light of (1) the statutory language which contemplates a demonstration of incompetency in the particular transaction, (2) the high standard of care to which real estate licensees are held, Hagar v. Mobley, supra, (3) the trial court’s factual conclusion that the misconduct was more akin to incompetency than to mistake, and (4) the vital importance of strictly accurate legal descriptions in real estate transactions, I would have upheld the trial court’s conclusion that the failure of appellants to accurately describe the property in pertinent legal documents amounted to incompetency under § 33-28-lll(a)(ix).
The majority also conclude that this case warrants reversal because the appellees failed to prove that appellants had realized their profits in consequence of the incorrect legal description. A causal connection between the misdeed and the profits must be demonstrated, before the court can assess a penalty under § 33-28-114(b), W.S.1977:
“In case any person shall have received any money or the equivalent thereof as a fee, commission, compensation or profit by or in consequence of a violation of any provision of this act [§§ 33-28-101 to 33-28-117], he shall, in addition, be liable to a penalty of not less than the amount of the sum of money so received and not more than three (3) times the sum so received as may be determined by the court, which penalty may be recovered in any court of competent jurisdiction by any person aggrieved.” (Emphasis added.)
In construing this provision, it is necessary to distinguish between the various acts specified in § 33-28-1ll(a)(ix) as grounds for the imposition of a penalty. “Incompetency,” unlike “bad faith,” “dishonesty,” or “untrustworthiness” is not a characteristic which might be assumed by the broker in an effort to reap profits. Accordingly, it would seem logical to focus upon whether appellants received their profits “by” their misdescription of the real estate, rather than “in consequence of” the misdescription. Section 33-28-114(b), supra. Appellees relied on appellants to furnish a correct legal description and testified that they would not have purchased the apartment had they known the description to be wrong. Therefore, appellants, by *845supplying legally deficient documents which they held out as being accurate, caused appellees to purchase the apartment and to confer a profit on appellants. This construction of the statute is consistent with those cases which hold that actual damages or harm need not be proven in order to assess statutory penalties for a broker’s incompetency. Lewis Realty, Inc. v. Wisconsin Real Estate Brokers’ Board, supra.
An affirmance in this case would, in my opinion, have promoted the purpose of the Real Estate License Act of 1971 to protect the public from unprofessional practices in the handling of real estate transactions. As we said in Hagar v. Mobley, supra, 638 P.2d at 138:
“Realtors, just like doctors, lawyers, engineering consultants, and builders, hold themselves out as professionals; it is their job to know their profession. Peo-pie rely on and trust them. Failure to comply with either the accepted standards in the field or the standards society is willing to recognize as acceptable, is actionable.”