Opinion
A real-estate broker who undertakes to negotiate an exchange of properties does not earn his commission unless the terms of the trade are authorized, agreed to, or ratified by the respective owners of the two properties. In the present case it did not appear that a wife, who owned one of the properties, assented to or ratified the terms of the proposed trade, although her husband agreed to and favored the exchange. Held that under these circumstances the broker was not entitled to his commission.
Argued October 24th, 1922
Decided October 27th, 1922.
ACTION to recover for services rendered in arranging for an exchange of the defendants' farm for city property, brought to the Superior Court in New Haven County where the plaintiff was nonsuited in a trial to the jury before Kellogg, J., and from the refusal of the trial court to set aside such judgment the plaintiff appealed. No er or.
Frank P. McEvoy, for the appellant (plaintiff).
Charles W. Bauby, for the appellees (defendants).
The plaintiff seeks to recover upon his agreement with defendants for his services in effecting a trade of defendants' property. He offered evidence tending to prove that he procured Paul M. Rosengarten, who offered to trade a certain farm for defendants' property, and that defendants and Rosengarten agreed upon the terms of said trade. The plaintiff failed to offer evidence that the owner of this farm, Pauline Rosengarten, wife of said Paul M. Rosengarten, ever agreed to the trade, or authorized her husband to make it, or ratified it. The plaintiff therefore failed to carry out his agreement to produce a customer ready, able and willing to complete the trade in conformity to the terms of his contract of employment, and the judgment of nonsuit was not erroneous.