Bradkin v. Leverton

• Citation: 309 N.Y.S.2d 192,257 N.E.2d 643,26 N.Y.2d 192
• Parties: , 257 N.E.2d 643 Nathaniel M. BRADKIN, Appellant, v. Morris LEVERTON, Respondent.
• Decision Date: 05 March 1970
• Court: New York Court of Appeals

Page 192

309 N.Y.S.2d 192

26 N.Y.2d 192, 257 N.E.2d 643

Nathaniel M. BRADKIN, Appellant, v. Morris LEVERTON, Respondent.

Court of Appeals of New York.

March 5, 1970.

Sol Gelb and Simon Klein, New York City, for appellant.

Franz S. Leichter, Milvin C. Robbins, New York City, and Stephen C. Schaeffer, for respondent.

FULD, Chief Judge.

On this appeal from the dismissal of the complaint on motion before trial, we are called upon to say whether--accepting its allegations as true and reading them most liberally in favor of the pleader (see, e.g., Kober v. Kober, 16 N.Y.2d 191, 193, 264 N.Y.S.2d 364, 365, 211 N.E.2d 817, 818; Denihan Enterprises v. O'Dwyer, 302 N.Y. 451, 458, 99 N.E.2d 235, 238)--it states a cause of action.

The complaint recites that the plaintiff, employed by H. L. Federman & Co., Inc., to find corporations which needed financing, procured for his employer the business of financing Mauchly Associates, Inc. By a letter dated October 25, 1966, Federman acknowledged not only that the plaintiff had earned $10,000 for having arranged $200,000 worth of financing in Mauchly but, in addition, that he was 'to receive 10% Of (any) net profit' which it (Federman) might realize '(s)hould there be a second financing, or any other financing * * * concerning Mauchly in the year 1967'. The complaint further recites that the defendant was an officer, director and nonvoting stockholder of Federman, that he became acquainted with Mauchly only through the plaintiff and that he knew or should have known that the plaintiff was to receive 10% Of any profits derived from financing Mauchly. However, the complaint continues, solely through the 'business relations between Mauchly and Federman created by the plaintiff', the defendant was enabled, without the plaintiff's knowledge, to 'arrange private financing transactions' with Mauchly. The plaintiff, who learned of the defendant's actions later, charges that there was an implied promise by the defendant to pay the plaintiff 10% Of his net profit--which amounted to more than $1,000,000--and that, although 'due demand' was made by him, the defendant refused to compensate him 'out of the profit from his Mauchly financing'. ¹ In a second cause of action, the plaintiff, claiming that he is entitled to 10% Of the profits realized by the defendant, seeks an accounting.

The defendant moved to dismiss the complaint, pursuant to CPLR 3211 (subd. (a)), on the ground (1) that the causes of action were barred by the Statute of Frauds (par. 5) and (2) that the complaint failed to state a cause of action (par. 7). Although not admitting that the plaintiff introduced Mauchly to Federman or that he learned of Mauchly through the plaintiff in the first instance, the defendant does admit that some time in 1966, and again in January and June, 1967, he or his wife loaned Mauchly more than $200,000 and that he became a director of that corporation. He contends, however, that, even if there had been an agreement between him and the plaintiff, the Statute of Frauds (General Obligations Law, Consol.Laws, c. 24--A, § 5--701, subd. 10) renders it unenforceable since there was no writing; that the complaint fails to state a cause of action since he, as an officer of Federman, was not individually liable under the plaintiff's agreement with Federman.

The court at Special Term granted the defendant's motion and dismissed the complaint. It was its view that, since the plaintiff was, in effect, seeking a 'finder's fee,' the Statute of Frauds required a writing signed by the defendant and that the letter from Federman did not remove the statute's bar. The Appellate Division affirmed the resulting order of dismissal without opinion. Two justices dissented; concluding that the complaint stated a cause of action in tort, they interpreted it 'as alleging both a breach of the contract induced by the defendant and an interference by defendant in the performance of the contract.'

We agree with the Appellate Division dissenters that the complaint should be upheld but we read it, as does its draftsman, as stating a cause of action in quasi contract.

Quasi contracts are not contracts at all, although they give rise to obligations more akin to those stemming from contract than from tort. ² The contract is a mere fiction, a form imposed in order to adapt the case to a given remedy. (See Keener, The Law of Quasi-Contracts (1893), p. 14.) Briefly stated, a quasi-contractual obligation is one imposed by law where there has been no agreement or expression of assent, by word or act, on the part of either party involved. The law creates it, regardless of the intention of the parties, to assure a just and equitable result. (See, e.g., Dentists' Supply Co. v. Cornelius, 281 App.Div. 306, 308, 119 N.Y.S.2d 570, 571, affd. 306 N.Y. 624, 116 N.E.2d 238; Dermott v. State of New York, 99 N.Y. 101, 109, 1 N.E. 242, 245; see, also, Miller v. Schloss, 218 N.Y. 400, 407, 113 N.E. 337, 339; Ward v. Taggart, 51 Cal.2d 736, 741, 336 P.2d 534; Restatement, Restitution, § 1; 1 Corbin, Contracts (1963), § 19; 1 Williston, Contracts (3d ed., 1957), § 3A.) 'The obligation implied under such circumstances', the court wrote in the Dermott case (99 N.Y., at p. 109, 1 N.E., at p. 246), 'is such as justice would dictate, and must conform to what the court may assume would have been the agreement of the parties if the situation had been anticipated and provided for.' The applicable principle finds apt and more full statement in Miller v. Schloss, 218 N.Y. 400, 407, 113 N.E. 337, 339, Supra:

'A Quasi or constructive contract rests upon the equitable principle that a person shall not be allowed to enrich himself unjustly at the expense of another. In truth it is not a contract or promise at all. It is an obligation which the law creates, in the absence of any agreement, when and because the acts of the parties or others have placed in the possession of one person money, or its equivalent, under such circumstances that in equity and good conscience he ought not to retain it, and which Ex aequo et bono belongs to another. Duty, and not a promise or agreement or intention of the person sought to be charged, defines it. It is fictitiously deemed contractual, in order to fit the cause of action to the contractual remedy.'

Although there was no agreement between them, express or implied, the defendant received a benefit from the plaintiff's services under circumstances which, in justice, preclude him from denying an obligation to pay for them. As already noted, the plaintiff had, according to the complaint, introduced Mauchly to Federman and, under his written agreement with Federman, he was to receive from that party, in addition to an introduction fee of $10,000, '10% Of (its) net profit' on a 'second financing * * * concerning Mauchly in the year 1967'. It was solely from this relationship, which the plaintiff had created between Federman and Mauchly, that the defendant's dealings with Mauchly arose. By intruding into the transaction set up by the plaintiff, the defendant made use of his corporate position to promote his own private interests. More specifically, when the plaintiff procured Mauchly for Federman, he fully performed his part of the contract with Federman and thereupon became entitled, without more, to 10% Of any profit which that corporation would have realized from any further financing of Mauchly. Since the defendant, an officer and director of Federman, introduced into the transaction and took into himself the Mauchly financing, he obtained the benefit of the plaintiff's labors and must compensate him for such services.

This brings us to the defendant's contention--actually his threshold argument--that the absence of a writing between him and the plaintiff defeats the plaintiff's claim. It is true that quasi contract denotes a contract implied in law and that the Statute of Frauds' requirement of a writing to enforce an agreement for finders' or brokers' commissions expressly applies 'to a contract implied in fact or in law' (General Obligations Law, § 5--701, subd. 10). ³ It is on the basis of such reasoning that the defendant asserts the bar of the statute. Thus, in his brief, he urges that the plaintiff may not avoid its impact by casting his action in a guise other than one for a finder's fee through the 'mere expediency' of labeling such a claim as one in 'quantum meruit'.

A contract to pay a finder's fee...