Payne v. Twitchell
Payne v. Twitchell
Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The appellee recovered a judgment for $175 against appellant for commissions under the following written contract:
“Wortendyke, NT. J., August 18th, 1909.
“1 have a description of my property 20 acre farm at Wortenclyke, Nr. J., entered on the books of James S. Payne, and I agree to pay him a commission of Five per cent, if he secures a buyer for the same at a price satisfactory to me.
“William S. Twitch ell/’
The pertinent facts on this appeal are that early in November, 1909, Payne secured a buyer ready, able and willing to buy the farm at $3,500, and so notified Twitehell, who, on October 28th, had sold and conveyed Ihe farm for $3,500.
At the trial before the District Court the defendant made motions for a nonsuit and a direction on the ground that the
The fallacy of this argument arises from a misconception of the nature of the employment under which the commission was promised. In such an employment the principal does not bind himself to sell or even stipulate that he will be able to convey, and he confers upon the person he employs no authority so to' bind him. It is not even necessary to the validity of such contract to pay commissions that the promisor should be the owner of the land, or be able to control the title or even that he shall contemplate its sale. The sole effect of the principal’s ownership of the land is that his agreement to pay commissions must be in writing. Sadler v. Young, 49 Vroom 594, is a direct illustration of sueli an employment by one who was not the owner and could neither convey the land to the buyer secured under his contract or prevent it being conveyed to a stranger. It is of course true that the employment of another to find a buyer of real estate is usually the act of an owner who expects to sell at a satisfactory price, but as in Sadler v. Young the agreement to pay for the required service may be the act of one who is not the owner, but is merely interested in producing a purchaser, and from the legal point of view the principal need have no interest in the land at all, may even, to suppose an extreme case, desire to get rid of a disagreeable neighbor by finding a purchaser who will buy his house. He agrees to pay for certain services—
Story deals with the question at length in his work on Agency (4th ed., §§ 470 et seq.), citing fully from Pothier and Domat, and showing that the rule of the civil law was the rule of the common lava and it may be added the rule of common sense and common honesty.
As soon as we get rid of the notion that the ownership or control of the land is an essential pari of the agreement by one person to pay another for performing a specified service, we see at once that such employments axe in law assimilated, not with agreements touching interests in land or even strictly speaking with the relation of principal and agent, hut rather with those special employments by which one is engaged to seek out a particular person or a person answering to a particular description and bring such person into communication with his employer. A person who has been injured in a collision may desire to be put into communication with those who witnessed the accident; a solicitor may he seeking the
The fact of such communication, in the present case, is not found in the state of the case, and is negatived by the intendments necessary to support the judgment.
The same is true as to the fact that the appellant had employed several brokers to find buyers for his farm, which is not only not found as a fact but which standing alone would be without significance. In order to invoke the special rule that has been applied in cases -where the sale was effected by one of such several brokers, the fact that the sale was so made is the crux of the rule. In the present case, not only does such fact not appear, but, on the contrary, it is expressly negatived by the state of the case which sets forth that the sale wras made by the appellant himself.
This is fatal to the constructive contract suggested in Vreeland v. Vetterlein, 4 Vroom 247, and that has been applied by courts elsewhere. 19 Cyc. 260; Rowan v. Hull, 2 Am. & Eng. Ann. Cas. 884; Quist v. Goodfellow, 9 Id. 431; 23 Am. & Eng. Encycl. L. 914.
The judgment of the Passaic District Court is affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.