Albert Pack Corp. v. Fickling Properties, Inc.
| Citation | 146 Fla. 362,200 So. 907 |
| Parties | ALBERT PACK CORPORATION et al. v. FICKLING PROPERTIES, Inc. |
| Decision Date | 11 March 1941 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Florida |
Certiorari to Circuit Court, Dade County; Ross Williams, Judge.
Suit by Fickling Properties, Inc., a Florida corporation, against Albert Peck Corporation, a Delaware Corporation, and Albert Pack, individually, and another, for an accounting. To review an unsatisfactory order of the circuit court, defendants bring certiorari.
Writ of certiorari awarded and order quashed.
COUNSEL Albert B. Bernstein, of Miami, for petitioners.
Ira C Haycock, of Miami, for respondent.
A bill of complaint was filed praying for an accounting, under the direction of the court, of the amounts due under an agreement, which it was alleged constituted a joint adventure of Fickling Properties, Inc., a Florida corporation, the plaintiff, and Albert Pack Corporation, a Delaware corporation, and Albert Pack, two of the defendants. Inasmuch as it seems necessary in the determination of this litigation to refer only to the parties we have named we will do so designating them by their positions in the chancery court.
The plaintiff was engaged in the real estate brokerage business and because of an advertisement it placed in one of the newspapers giving information that certain property would be sold and inviting bidders to be present, came in touch with the defendants who were interested in the purchase of the property. Eventually they bought it.
Incidentally the president of the plaintiff corporation, who was the sole witness in its behalf in the inquest where the facts we will discuss were developed, was financially interested in the property purchased by the defendants and decidedly benefitted by that transaction.
According to his narrative, negotiations were entered into between himself as president of the plaintiff corporation, and Albert Pack who held the same office in the defendant corporation with a view to the resale of this property. He testified, supporting the theory that a joint adventure was in fact created by these representatives of the respective corporations, that the defendant was to 'put the finances up' and the property was to be resold at the highest available price, the profits to be shared equally. The money furnished by defendants for the original purchase was placed in a special account and disbursed therefrom to pay the plaintiff the purchase price, to cover expenses of the transfer including attorney's fees and recordation of instruments in the original transaction and to defray the cost of constructing a sea wall around the property. Subsequently some of the property was sold by plaintiff and other brokers and on at least one occasion the check for the purchase price was sent to the defendant Pack who remitted only part of it to the plaintiff for deposit in the special fund.
No period of duration of the association of the parties was determined by them and there were no specifications of what the plaintiff should do to accomplish the sale of the property. No obligation was assumed by it to incur any expense either of resale, or in maintaining the property or to contribute anything save the negligible cost of supervising the joint account and such part of overhead cost as could be chargeable to any sales made through its office.
As will be seen we are not dealing with the right of the plaintiff to recover for commissions earned or services rendered, but only with the absence or presence of a contract establishing a joint adventure.
Stripped of the ramifications of the subject these are the facts given quite briefly, on which the plaintiff relied to establish a joint adventure. Obviously, the chancellor appointed a master to take testimony first on the question whether such a relationship actually existed, because if it did not there was no need to delve into the matter of accounting. After the master reported, the chancellor entered an order that the coadventure...
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...427, 140 So. 211, 141 So. 596; Coral Gables Securities Corp. v. Miami Corp., 123 Fla. 172, 166 So. 655; Albert Pack Corp. v. Fickling Properties, Inc., 146 Fla. 362, 200 So. 907; Livingston v. Twyman, Fla., 43 So.2d 354. The utterance of the slanderous words to plaintiff in the presence of ......
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...of a joint venture. Willis v. Fowler, 102 Fla. 35, 136 So. 358; Boyd v. Hunter, 104 Fla. 561, 140 So. 666; Albert Pack Corp. v. Fickling Properties, Inc., 146 Fla. 362, 200 So. 907; Yokum v. Rodriguez, Fla., 41 So.2d 446, 448; Livingston v. Twyman, Fla., 43 So.2d 354; Am. Jur., p. 682. The ......
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McKissick v. Bilger, BE-278
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...be no joint venture for the further reason that there was lack of agreement to participate in any loss. Albert Pack Corporation v. Fickling Properties, Inc., 146 Fla. 362, 200 So. 907. There was a failure to establish a contract or existence of a combination between them. See: Bowmaster v. ......