Quinn v. Burton
| Decision Date | 22 June 1905 |
| Citation | 74 N.E. 942,188 Mass. 466 |
| Parties | QUINN v. BURTON. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
James H. Murphy, for plaintiff.
Stephen H. Tyng, for defendant.
This is an action brought to recover a broker's commission for procuring some one to make an exchange with the defendant for the defendant's farm in Reading.
No contract for an exchange was in fact made, but the plaintiff contends that the has made out a case within Fitzpatrick v. Gilson, 176 Mass. 477, 57 N.E. 1000, and Cadigan v. Crabtree, 179 Mass. 474, 481, 61 N.E. 37, 55 L. R. A. 77, 88 Am. St. Rep. 397. The case at bar is not like Fitzpatrick v. Gilson in one respect. In the case at bar no customer was in fact introduced to the defendant, and the terms of a trade were not in fact arranged, which trade subsequently fell through, not through the fault of the customer, but through the fault of the defendant. More than that, the person who, the plaintiff claims, was the customer secured by him, testified that he never was willing to make the exchange. All that the plaintiff has claimed is that the customer told his broker that he was ready to make the exchange, and the broker told the plaintiff, and the plaintiff told the defendant; and thereupon the defendant refused to go on with the trade.
It might be argued that a broker does not earn his commission until he produces a customer, and that in the case at bar he had not done so, because the customer refused to honor his broker's statement that he would make the exchange; that in such a case what the defendant got from the plaintiff was a lawsuit, and not a customer. But we do not find it necessary to make a decision on that point, because we are of opinion, after a careful examination of the evidence, that the jury were not warranted in finding that the customer told his broker that he would make the exchange.
Exceptions sustained.
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Lindsay v. Swift
...while the contract continued in force. Cutter v. Denmon, 111 Mass. 474;Greenfield Savings Bank v. Simons, 133 Mass. 415;Quinn v. Burton, 188 Mass. 466, 74 N. E. 942;Randall v. Peerless Motor Car Co., 212 Mass. 352, 99 N. E. 221. See Hayes v. Hall, 188 Mass. 510, 511, 74 N. E. 935. The manil......
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Quinn v. Burton
...the exchange,’ and the ultimate question whether if this had appeared a commission had been earned, was left undecided. Quinn v. Burton, 188 Mass. 466, 469, 74 N. E. 942. At the second trial, while there was evidence from which the jury could find that the customer had consented to make an ......
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Brilliant v. Samelas
...185 Mass. 555, 70 N. E. 1012. The rule established in Fitzpatrick v. Gilson is not disturbed by anything decided in Quinn v. Burton, 188 Mass. 466, 74 N. E. 942, where the supposed customer never agreed to make an exchange, or in Clark v. Bonner, 217 Mass. 201, 104 N. E. 494, where it was a......
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Quinn v. Burton
...the exchange,' and the ultimate question whether if this had appeared a commission had been earned, was left undecided. Quinn v. Burton, 188 Mass. 466, 469, 74 N.E. 942. the second trial, while there was evidence from which the jury could find that the customer had consented to make an exch......