Walker v. Baldwin & Frick

• Decision Date: 27 March 1906
• Citation: 63 A. 362,103 Md. 352
• Parties: WALKER v. BALDWIN & FRICK et al.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

63 A. 362

103 Md. 352

WALKER v. BALDWIN & FRICK et al.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

March 27, 1906

Appeal from Court of Common Pleas; Henry Stockbridge, Judge.

Action by Henry M. Walker against Baldwin & Frick and John W. Frick. From a judgment in favor of defendants, plaintiff appeals. Reversed.

Argued before McSHERRY, C.J., and BRISCOE, BOYD, PAGE, SCHMUCKER JONES, and BURKE, JJ.

Walter I. Dawkins, for appellant.

Stuart S. Janney and Albert C. Ritchie, for appellees.

BURKE J.

This suit was instituted in the court of common pleas by the appellant against the appellees to recover the sum of $1,125 which th plaintiff alleged was due him by the defendants under a special agreement for services rendered in connection with the sale of certain property located at the northeast corner of Baltimore and Hanover streets, in the city of Baltimore. The agreement upon which the suit is based is stated in the second count of the declaration to have been made about the month of October, 1904, at which time the plaintiff was acting as an unlicensed real estate broker in the city of Baltimore. The case resulted in a judgment for the defendants, and the plaintiff has prosecuted this appeal. Two questions only are presented by the record. One arises upon the refusal of the court to permit the plaintiff to introduce certain testimony, and the other upon the action of the court in granting the defendants' fourth prayer which in effect, upon the undisputed facts in the case directed a verdict for the defendants. The plaintiff complains of the refusal of the court to permit him to offer in evidence a letter written by Sylvanus Stokes to Louis Samanni. It appears that Walker, some time after the conflagration of 1904, conceived the idea of building a hotel in Baltimore, and had done some work towards the realization of this project. Samanni undertook to raise money for the purpose. He secured subscriptions to the extent of $85,000. The scheme was abandoned, and the subscriptions dropped. The letter sought to be introduced had reference to this hotel project. It was wholly collateral and irrelevant matter. It tended to prove no issue involved. The defendants were in no manner concerned with the subject-matter. They had no knowledge of its contents, and were not bound by any declarations which Stokes might make upon the subject, and the court was clearly right in refusing to admit it as evidence. When the testimony on both sides had been concluded, the plaintiff offered nine prayers, and the defendants submitted six. The court refused the defendants' first, second, and third prayers, and overruled the plaintiff's special exception to the granting of the defendants' fourth prayer, which prayer the court modified, and granted as modified. After granting the fourth prayer, the court declared that, "Inasmuch as the granting of the fourth prayer of the defendants must necessarily be attended by a rendition of the verdict for the defendants, it becomes unnecessary to rule upon the several prayers of the plaintiff, and on the fifth and sixth prayers of the defendants." To the action of the court in granting the defendants' fourth prayer, and in overruling the plaintiff's special exception thereto, and the refusal to rule on the several prayers of the plaintiff, the plaintiff excepted. No exceptions were reserved by the defendants.

The granted fourth prayer, which raises the main question in the case, is as follows: "The defendants pray the court to instruct itself sitting as a jury that it being the uncontradictory evidence in this case that the plaintiff at the time of the negotiations relied on in this case was carrying on the business of real estate broker in Baltimore City, and that negotiations between the plaintiff and the defendants upon which the plaintiff relied constituted a part of his business within the purview of sections 698 to 700 inclusive, of the Baltimore City charter, and since it further appears that the plaintiff did not obtain nor hold during that portion of the period covered by said negotiations the license required by said section, that he is therefore not entitled to recover, and the verdict of the court sitting as a jury must be for the...