Geddes v. Rhee
| Decision Date | 24 July 1914 |
| Docket Number | 18,739 - (159) |
| Citation | 148 N.W. 549,126 Minn. 517 |
| Parties | CHARLES A. GEDDES v. JACOB VAN RHEE and Another |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Action in the district court for Mille Lacs county to recover $1,000. The case was tried before Roeser, J., and a jury which returned a verdict in favor of defendants. From an order denying his motion for a new trial, plaintiff appealed. Reversed.
Secret profits -- instruction erroneous.
Instruction in an action to recover secret profits, claimed to have been realized by defendants in the purchase of land for plaintiff as his agents held prejudicially erroneous as, among other things, centering the jury's attention upon a single detail of the transaction, thus obscuring the real issues and likewise as, in effect, ignoring plaintiff's evidence.
E. L McMillan, for appellant.
J. D. Sullivan, for respondent.
Action to recover the sum of $1,000, claimed by plaintiff to have been received by defendants as secret profits growing out of the purchase of a tract of land, wherein defendants were his agents.
Two trials were had to a jury, the first resulting in a disagreement, the second in a verdict for defendants concurred in by 10 jurors. Plaintiff appealed from an order denying a new trial. His sole claim of error relates to an instruction, later to be set out, given at defendants' request. Its bearing on the case necessitates an understanding of the issues and their development on the trial. In January, 1912, plaintiff, a South Dakota farmer came to Milaca to purchase land. He there met defendants, who were land agents with whom he had no previous acquaintance. They interested him in the purchase of a certain quarter section belonging to one Beaver, who, prior to this time, had listed it with defendant Erickson, but the latter's authority had terminated on January 1, 1912. Plaintiff claimed defendants advised him that they believed the land could be purchased for about $30 per acre, and agreed to buy it for him at such price or for as much less as possible, he to pay therefor not to exceed $4,800, which amount was to include one dollar an acre as a commission. Defendants denied this agreement, claiming, substantially as their counsel puts it, that they acted as Beaver's agents, if agents for anyone, but that in fact they did not act as agents for either, but as middlemen. After the preliminary conversation between the parties in these regards, whatever it was, defendant Erickson, on January 17, 1912, prepared a writing, purporting to be an agreement between Beaver and plaintiff, wherein the former, in consideration of $4,800, agreed to deliver to the latter the quarter section of land referred to. The instrument recited the deposit by plaintiff of $500 in bank as earnest money and part payment, to be applied on the land "as soon as the abstracts have been brough to date and the papers presented to the party of the second part as per agreement." Plaintiff therein also undertook to pay $1,500 more on or before March 10, 1912, and to give a mortgage back on the land for the balance of the consideration. The writing contained other stipulations not here material. It was signed "C. M. Beaver by C. E. Erickson, His Agent," and by plaintiff, who thereupon made the stipulated deposit. Then, or shortly thereafter, defendants agreed together to obtain the land as cheap as possible from Beaver, and thus make a large profit from plaintiff. Pursuant thereto defendant Van Rhee interviewed Beaver, advising him that possibly he had a purchaser for the land, but not mentioning plaintiff or any dealings with him, and obtained an executory contract, with himself as vendee, whereby Beaver sold him the land for $3,800, of which $50 was payable in cash, $1,250 before March 1, 1912, and a mortgage for $2,500. Thereafter Van Rhee, after making the stipulated payments to Beaver, induced him to execute a deed of the land to plaintiff, showing a consideration of $4,800, claiming to Beaver that plaintiff preferred to have the consideration stated at that amount. Later plaintiff accepted this deed at defendants' instance, paying...
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