Sheldon Greene & Associates, Inc. v. Williams Island Associates

• Decision Date: 18 December 1990
• Docket Number: No. 90-1218,90-1218
• Citation: 571 So.2d 549,16 Fla. L. Weekly 167
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals
• Parties: 16 Fla. L. Weekly 167 SHELDON GREENE & ASSOCIATES, INC., a Florida corporation, Appellant, v. WILLIAMS ISLAND ASSOCIATES, a Florida limited partnership, et al., Appellees.

Page 549

571 So.2d 549

16 Fla. L. Weekly 167

SHELDON GREENE & ASSOCIATES, INC., a Florida corporation, Appellant, v. WILLIAMS ISLAND ASSOCIATES, a Florida limited partnership, et al., Appellees.

No. 90-1218.

District Court of Appeal of Florida Third District.

Dec. 18, 1990.

Norman Malinski, Miami, for appellant.

Lapidus & Frankel and Richard L. Lapidus, Miami, for appellees.

Before BARKDULL and HUBBART and FERGUSON, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

Following our reversal of a final judgment entered upon a directed verdict in favor of the defendant Williams Island Associates in an action for breach of contract, a brokerage commission, and quantum meruit, the trial court entertained a motion for summary judgment filed by the defendant (as our prior decision had authorized) and entered a final summary judgment for the defendant. Sheldon Greene & Assoc. v. Williams Island Assoc., 550 So.2d 1142 (Fla. 3d DCA 1989), rev. denied, 557 So.2d 35 (Fla.1990). The plaintiff Sheldon Greene & Associates, Inc. appeals.

We affirm based on a holding that the plaintiff, as a matter of law, was not entitled to recover from the defendant based on the legal theories pled in the complaint. We reach this result because the management company, which the plaintiff produced to develop and then manage a prospective hotel investment for the defendant, was financially unable to perform. As a consequence, the plaintiff, in producing such a financially troubled investor/manager for the defendant, failed to perform any service for the defendant and was therefore not entitled to recover under a quantum meruit theory; the plaintiff was also not entitled to recover a brokerage fee or for breach of contract because it failed to produce, as agreed, an investor/manager who was financially able to perform. See Variety Children's Hosp., Inc. v. Vigliotti, 385 So.2d 1052, 1053 (Fla. 3d DCA 1980); Tobin & Tobin Ins. Agency, Inc. v. Zeskind, 315 So.2d 518, 520-21 (Fla. 3d DCA 1975); see also Sticht v. Shull, 543 So.2d 395 (Fla. 4th DCA 1989); Chanton v. Drucker, 299 So.2d 145 (Fla. 3d DCA), cert. denied, 307 So.2d 447 (Fla.1974); Furnari v. Goodman, 242 So.2d 503 (Fla. 3d DCA 1970). Moreover, the plaintiff's affidavit, adduced below to establish an ostensible benefit conferred on the defendant, constituted legally inadmissible evidence because it was based on hypothetical facts related to the building of the subject prospective hotel which was, in fact, never built--and, consequently, was insufficient...