Court Opinion

ID: 9619471
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:28:18.13115+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:11:42.906737
License: Public Domain

Littlejohn, Justice
(dissenting) :
I respectfully dissent and would reverse the order of the lower court. The following facts are either admitted, undisputed, or established by the clear preponderance of the evidence to the exclusion of all other reasonable inferences, and require a reversal as a matter of law:
1. The plaintiff had a binding contract to sell the subject realty for the 12 owners.
2. It was signed by Myrtice D. Thomason and BroadusDurant, Jr., two of the 12 owners of the property, and by Nancy Durant, who served as administratrix of the estate of her husband, Broadus Durant, Sr.
3. Before the contract to sell expired, Myrtice Thomason and Broadus Durant, Jr. signed an extension. Nancy Du*324rant, who was aging, was present at the time of the signing and acquiesced in the agreement.
4. That the extension was binding is not disputed by the parties to the contract.
5. When the defendant attempted -to sell the property, the owners’ agents refused to negotiate.
6. The defendant recognized the existence of the contract and asked the plaintiff to procure the signatures of the owners so that the sale could be made.
7. The plaintiff changed the terms of the contract in two respects:
(a) provided for temporary occupancy after the deed was signed, and
(b) added itself as payee, along with the defendant, as relates to the commission.
8. The defendant took the amended contract and completed -the sale.
Broadus Durant, Jr. and Myrtice D. Thomason were the only two owners residing in South Carolina. It is inescapable that they acted for the other owners, most of whom were in Pennsylvania, and the fact that the contract was consummated establishes conclusively that they were agents for all of the owners.
Myrtice D. Thomason was in a position to know more about the -transaction than all of -the witnesses who testified or -stipulated for the defendant. She stated:
“That on or about October 12, 1976, an extension agreement was signed by Myrtice Thomason and Broadus Durant extending the initial listing until April 26, 1977. That the extension was executed at Nancy Durant’s home and in Nancy Durant’s presence and that Nancy Durant acquiesced in said extension; that the majority, if not all, of the remaining owners of the property were contacted by telephone and acquiesced in the extension of the listing. . . .
*325"That ... a contract for purchase was presented by Marion Parlette to Nancy Durant in the presence of Myrtice Thomason; that Marion Parlette was told to present the contract through Joyce Snell and The Huguenin Company; that thereafter the same contract was presented by a friend of the Durant family, Richard Carson.
“That thereafter the same contract was presented by Joyce Snell of The Huguenin Company, amendments were made to the contract, and all owners contacted by Joyce Snell and/or Myrtice Thomason and advised of the offer. That after the contract was amended, signatures of all of the owners were obtained through the efforts of Joyce Snell and The Huguenin Company, and the contract was returned, executed by all owners, to Joyce Snell.”
The fact that the defendant denies that Nancy Durant acquiesced in the extension is of no probative value.
In my view the extension was valid and binding. All parties, including the defendant, have recognized its validity and governed themselves accordingly.
While it is unnecessary to reach the estoppel issue in order to reverse, in my view the law of estoppel is definitely applicable and should exclude the defendant from recovering more than half of the commission.
I would reverse.
Lewis, C. J., concurs.