Doggett v. Greene

• Decision Date: 18 April 1912
• Parties: DOGGETT et al. v. GREENE.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

254 Ill. 134

98 N.E. 219

DOGGETT et al.

v.GREENE.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

April 18, 1912.

Error to Appellate Court, First District, on Appeal from Municipal Court of Chicago; Max Eberhardt, Judge.

Action by O. J. Doggett and another against H. N. Greene. There was a judgment of the Appellate Court affirming a judgment for plaintiffs, and defendant brings error. Reversed and remanded.George A. Trude and M. Marso, for plaintiff in error.

Bradley, Harper & Eheim (Thomas E. D. Bradley, of counsel), for defendants in error.

CARTWRIGHT, J.

On November 2, 1903, the plaintiff in error, Horatio N. Greene, at Owego, N. Y., conveyed to Julia F. Heyworth, of Chicago, for the consideration of $45,000, a lot at 1261 Michigan avenue, in said city of Chicago. He was sued in the municipal court of Chicago by the defendants in error, a firm of real estate brokers, for commissions alleged to have been earned in bringing about the sale. A trial resulted in a verdict for $1,125, upon which judgment was entered. The Appellate Court for the First District affirmed the judgment, and a writ of certiorari was granted to bring the record under review in this court.

There was uncontradicted evidence of the following facts: The defendant, Horatio N. Greene, has his home in Chicago, but for many years spent most of his time in traveling, and his son, Dr. Frank C. Greene, who was a merchant in Chicago, looked after the property in a general way and collected the rents. Julia F. Heyworth owned adjoining property, and the two families had been neighbors and friends for a great number of years. There had been occasional negotiations for the purchase of the property by Mrs. Heyworth, through her sons, Lawrence and James, with Dr. Greene, for about six years. In October, 1902, Herbert E. L. Doggett, one of the firm of brokers, called on Dr. Greene in reference to a sale of the property to Mrs. Heyworth, and was told by Dr. Greene that he would submit any proposition for a sale to his father, who was out of town. On October 30, 1902, plaintiffs wrote a letter to Dr. Greene submitting an offer from Lawrence Heyworth of about $40,000. On November 4, 1902, Dr. Greene wrote plaintiffs saying that it would be useless for him to submit the offer to his father as he knew it would not be considered. The next day plaintiffs wrote Dr. Greene saying that Mr. Heyworth offered 4 per cent. on $53,000 for a lease for a term of 99 years, with the privilege of purchasing at any time within 20 years at $55,000. Dr. Greene telegraphed the offer to his father, who replied by telegraph: ‘Offer refused; will not lease; letter coming.’ About a year after that time the lot was sold, on November 2, 1903, to Mrs. Heyworth, and the conveyance was made. In addition to evidence of these facts, Herbert E. L. Doggett testified that he had a conversation with Mrs. Heyworth at ter home about purchasing the property and conversations with her son Lawrence urging the purchase;that when the offers contained in the letters failed, he urged Lawrence Heyworth to buy at $45,000; that in the early part of 1903 he met Mrs. Heyworth and her two sons in the office of James, when she was preparing to go to Europe, and urged the purchase, and she told him that she would leave the matter in Lawrence's hands; that Lawrence thought it was best to wait until his mother returned from Europe, and when the witness heard she had returned, in November, 1903, he went to see her, and she informed him that she had purchased the property a few days before. He also testified, over the objection of the defendant, to the contents of a letter from the defendant to his son. The defendant denied any knowledge that Doggett was negotiating for the sale of the property. Mrs. Heyworth denied having a conversation with Doggett at her home relative to the purchase, and did not remember that anything was said at her son's office about letting the transaction stand in abeyance until her return from Europe. She did not think anything was said in regard to the property at that meeting and said that she turned the transaction over to her son James. Lawrence Hayworth testified that he had negotiated with Dr. Greene for the property at different times for seven or eight years, and James Heyworth testified that he had conversations with Dr. Greene all through the spring and summer of 1903, and brought influence to bear by threatening to erect a warehouse on the Heyworth property, and that when Greene finally made an offer of $45,000 he accepted it and the transaction was closed.

[1] Dr. Greene died before the trial, but his deposition had been taken by the defendant. The plaintiffs offered in evidence certain questions and answers contained in the deposition in both the direct and cross-examination, making the witness their own for that purpose. The defendant objected to reading the cross-interrogatories and answers, on the ground that having made Dr. Greene their own witness the plaintiffs were precluded from offering his testimony on cross-examination. In Adams v. Russell, 85 Ill. 284, it was held that, where one party takes a...