Court Opinion

ID: 9831942
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:29:48.578931+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:39.772453
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
As noted in our original opinion, appellants presented no assignment of error to the paragraph of the charge under which the verdict was rendered; but they now earnestly insist that there was fundamental error in that charge, for which the judgment should be reversed.
[3] After an examination of appellee’s petition filed in the trial court, we find that it contains no allegation that Laird had agreed with appellee to purchase the property through appellee at the time it was alleged that his negotiations with Laird were interrupted by the members of the firm of the Texas Land Company or at any other time. In Raymond v. Harrington, 96 Tex. 443, 72 S. W. 580, 73 S. W. 800, 62 L. R. A. 962, 97 Am. St. Rep. 914, our Supreme Court held that one who knowingly induces another to break his contract with a third person is liable to such third person for damages caused by the breach. To the same effect is the decision of Brown Hardware Co. v. Indiana Stove Co., 96 Tex. 453, 73 S. W. 800. But we know of no authoi'ity holding that where negotiations are pending between two parties, which may or may not eventuate in a contract, a termination of such negotiations through the interference of a third person will make such person liable in damages for such interference. The contrary of that proposition was announced in Roberts v. Clark, 103 S. W. 417, and Davidson v. Oakes, 128 S. W. 944. In that part of the court’s charge referred to above, one of the predicates for a verdict in plaintiff’s favor which the jury were instructed as necessary to be established was that appellee “was the person who procured a purchaser for the land of the defendant who was ready, willing, and able to buy at the price and on the terms made by Payne and the purchaser, and who did subsequently buy said land.” Construing the verdict in the light of this charge, it must be assumed that the jury found the affirmative of that issue, and, if those facts were true, then Payne became liable to appellee for the commission, independent of the further issue submitted in that paragraph of the charge, namely, whether or not Payne and the members of the Texas Land Company conspired together for the purpose of inducing, and did induce, Laird to terminate his negotiations with appellee and conclude the purchase through negotiations with Payne and the said company. We further find that in the petition plaintiff alleged substantially that he was employed by Payne to procure a purchaser for the land and that he did procure such purchaser in Laird.
Accordingly the motion for rehearing is granted, and the judgment of the trial court against the members of the Texas Land Company is reversed, and judgment here rendered in favor of appellants B. M. Whittaker, Munsey Cogdell, W. C. Jackson, and Charley Eastland, composing the partnership firm of the Texas Land Company; but the judgment in appellee’s favor against appellant J. W. Payne is affirmed.