Amerofina, Inc. v. U.S. Industries, Inc.

• Decision Date: 27 February 1975
• Citation: 335 A.2d 448,232 Pa.Super. 394
• Parties: AMEROFINA, INC. v. U.S. INDUSTRIES, INC., Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court

Page 448

335 A.2d 448

232 Pa.Super. 394

AMEROFINA, INC. v. U.S. INDUSTRIES, INC., Appellant.

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Feb. 27, 1975.

Application for Allocatur Denied May 14, 1975.

Gilbert J. Helwig, Pittsburgh, for appellant.

William D. Sutton, Thorp, Reed & Armstrong, Pittsburgh, for appellee.

Before WATKINS, President Judge, and JACOBS, HOFFMAN CERCONE, PRICE, VAN der VOORT and SPAETH, JJ.

JACOBS, Judge:

This case, evolving from a complex history of facts, represents a suit by Amerofina, Inc. (hereinafter Amerofina) against U.S. Industries, Inc. (hereinafter USI) to recover a 'finder's fee' which Amerofina alleges is due it for services rendered under an oral contract. Amerofina alleges that USI agreed to compensate Amerofina for its assistance in locating and procuring acquisition candidates for USI's program of corporate growth and amalgamation.

USI does not deny the existence of the oral contract, but it asserts that under the terms of the contract Amerofina was required to do more than locate and introduce suitable acquisition candidates. USI asserts that Amerofina was required to act as a 'broker', an engagement which required active negotiation on behalf of USI. USI also asserts that irrespective of the semantic characterization of Amerofina's contractual undertaking, it must prove as a condition precedent to recovery that it was the 'efficient procuring cause' of the acquisition. The evidence produced, USI asserts, was insufficient to satisfy this burden.

The jury returned a verdict for Amerofina in the amount of $220,000. Post-trial motions were denied, and USI brings this appeal.

The factual background of this case is a difficult terrain to cross, but the journey is necessary for a proper resolution of the issues. During the time pertinet to this case USI was a large conglomerate composed of more than one hundred subsidiaries and divisions operating in various business fields. Amerofina was engaged in the business of investment banking and stock brokerage, with principal offices in Pittsburgh, New York, Italy and Switzerland. In the summer of 1968 Herbert Kerr, a vice president of USI travelled to Pittsburgh to meet with Samuel Garvin, a vice president of Amerofina, who had been retained by a banking institution to find a purchaser for the bank. Kerr decided that the bank would not be a suitable acquisition for USI; however, he entered into an agreement with Garvin under which Amerofina would find and present to USI suitable companies for acquisition. Garvin testified that Kerr asked Amerofina to represent USI 'on a finder's fee basis,' and that he accepted the offer.

Kerr acknowledged that the parties had discussed USI's interest in acquisitions, that he had furnished Garvin with certain acquisition criteria, and that he had agreed that USI would pay a 'reasonable fee' or a 'mutually agreeable fee' in connection with acquisitions made by USI.

The first acquisition made by USI pursuant to this contract was a group of five affiliated corporations known as Berkeley Schools. Garvin introduced the parties, supplied USI with financial information, and helped to persuade one of the principal shareholders of Berkeley not to pull out of the deal because of a delay on the part of USI. Amerofina was paid $85,000 by USI which the Berkeley-USI acquisition agreement characterized as being 'for its services to USI as finder in connection with the negotiation of this Agreement.' Plaintiff's Exhibit 6.

The second matter for which Amerofina received a fee from USI involved USI's acquisition of a group of west coast finance companies known as Universal Guardian Acceptance Corporations (hereinafter collectively referred to as Finance). Finance had been organized by the principal shareholders of a group of 'health spa' corporations which eventually were to become Health Industries, Inc. (hereinafter Health), a third USI acquisition which is the subject of the present lawsuit. Finance was organized to serve as a financing institution which would buy or discount membership contracts of the various health spas. In 1968 Raymond Wilson, a principal shareholder of Finance and owner of some 13 spas, asked his attorney to locate a company which would be interested in acquiring Finance and Wilson's spas. The attorney, Lederer, contacted a broker, Dresner, who contacted Amerofina. Dresner furnished Amerofina, at its request, three folders of financial and other information, two relating to Finance and one relating to the spa corporations. After reviewing this information Amerofina, through Garvin, decided to submit the proposition as an acquisition possibility to USI. Kerr of USI was interested and Garvin made several trips to California in connection with the acquisition and on two of these trips he was accompanied by Kerr.

Meanwhile, and prior to Kerr's trips to the coast, Wilson, in search of expansion funds, had placed his spas into an inactive corporate shell traded on the Salt Lake City Stock Exchange, Kennebec Consolidated Mining Co. (hereinafter Kennebec) with thoughts toward a public offering. Another spa owner, Rice, who was also a Finance shareholder also transferred his spas into Kennebec, the name of which was later changed to Health.

Thus when Kerr and Garvin travelled to California in late 1968 and early 1969 Wilson was a major stockholder of both Finance and Kennebec. Garvin presented the interrelated Finance and Kennebec companies to USI as a two-step transaction, with USI first acquiring Finance which needed funds to continue purchasing the increasing amount of paper generated by Kennebec, and second with the possibility of USI acquiring the spas at a later time.

The Finance acquisition was formally closed in April of 1969. The Finance-USI acquisition agreement states: 'USI warrants to the Shareholders that it has not employed any broker or finder in connection with this transaction other than Amerofina, Inc., and USI will pay the fee of such finder in accordance with its arrangements with it.' Amerofina was paid $115,000 for its services in connection with the Finance acquisition.

It appears that the second step of the acquisition was delayed because of a rather substantial difference in the price-earnings ratio between the USI stock and Kennebec stock. However, in June of 1969 after a public offering of Kennebec stock lost its attraction due to a general market decline Wilson instructed his attorney, Lederer, to make efforts to rekindle USI's interest in the acquisition. In response to a letter from Lederer, Kerr dispatched an assistant to Salt Lake City to explore further the possibility of acquisition. In October of 1969, an acquisition agreement was executed under which USI was to acquire the newly named Health for $46,000,000. At this time Kerr informed Garvin that USI could not pay a finder's fee to Amerofina because Wilson had demanded that the fee be paid to Lederer. When Garvin's demands that the fee be paid to Amerofina were rejected, Amerofina began this assumpsit action.

It is upon this factual background that the present issues must be resolved. As stated above, USI raises a two-pronged sufficiency of the evidence issue challenging first, that Amerofina failed to sustain its burden of proving that it was the 'efficient procuring cause' of the Health acquisition; and second, that even if there was sufficient evidence of the causal link Amerofina's evidence was insufficient to show that USI had agreed to pay Amerofina for the type of limited nonparticipating services performed in this case. We will address ourselves first to USI's second contention.

I

Assuming for the moment the existence of the necessary causal relationship, it is USI's contention that Amerofina was engaged as a 'broker' and not as a 'finder.' Such distinction as exists between these two terms is more a matter of trade usage than legal definition. In general, a finder is an independent actor whose role is that of a middleman who introduces the parties, supplies information to one or both about the other and is required to do little else, whereas a broker 'negotiates on behalf of one of the parties or performs or is required to perform some other act identified with the interests of one party and against the interests of the other.' 13A Business Organizations, Fox & Fox, Corporate Acquisitions and Mergers, § 30.02 (1974). 'The finder is a person whose employment is limited to bringing the parties together so that they may negotiate their own contract, and the distinction between the finder and the broker frequently turns upon whether the intermediary has been invested with authority or duties beyond merely bringing the parties together, usually the authority to participate in negotiations.' Tyrone v. Kelley, 9 Cal.3d 1, 106 Cal.Rptr. 761, 766, 507 P.2d 65, 70 (1973). Finders are not involved 'in negotiating the price or any of the other terms of the transaction.' Sullivan v. Hopkins, 435 F.2d 1128, 1131 (9th Cir. 1970). This 'distinction between a finder (who finds, interests, introduces and brings the parties together for the deal which they themselves negotiate and consummate) and a broker (whose duty is to bring the parties to an agreement on his employer's terms) has been noted in all the decisions dealing with the subject (citations omitted).' Ames v. Ideal Cement Co., 37 Misc.2d 883, 235 N.Y.S.2d 622, 625 (Sup.Ct.1962). Thus, the finder's contract is 'an arrangement by which an intermediary finds, introduces, and brings together parties to a business opportunity, leaving the ultimate negotiation and consummation of the business transaction to the principals.' Annot., Validity, Construction, and Enforcement of Business Opportunities or 'Finder's Fee' Contract, 24 A.L.R.3d 1160, 1164 (1969).

In applying the rather tenuous distinction between these terms to the facts of this case we must, of course, view the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and give it the...