CLAIM FOR COMMISSION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8103, 7 May 1906, Page 2

CLAIM FOR COMMISSION.

AGENTS' POSITION DEFINED. AN IMPORTANT DECISION. A judgment of interest to agents mid property owners has been Riven by Mr T. Huteliesi.l,, SM.. in the case (iilmour mill Pallie v. Win. Kllerini. Mr Grey (AVilson uml (irey) appeared for the phuiihu's, and Mr Filzhcrbcrl for defen.lenl. TlieS.M. said Ibc plaintiffs uluimed .CM as commission l'.i'ihe sale of a farm by defendant. Tile statement alleged an agreement to pay eommission upon the introduction of a. customer, or in the alternative plaintiffs claimed judgment upon a quantum meruit. The evidence of plaintiffs' employment showed I hat it had been made in haplnz.rd fashion, and there win no documentary evidence to show the terms of the transaction. TlieS.M, remarked that he had, therefore, to gather as well as he could from the verbal expressions of the parties and their conduct what it was that the plaintiffs had to do to cam a commissi™. He deduced from the evidence that the plaintiffs were to find a purchaser. The first question, therefore, was ; Did the plaintiffs do so ? The facts in this connection were admitted. The plaintiffs took out to the defendant's farm a Mr Creelman, who inspected the property and agreed to purchase. The defendant's solicitor accordingly prepared an agreement for sale, which was signed, and upon which a deposit was paid by Creelman. The sale, however, never was completed, not by reason of any act or default on the part of the defendant, but by the default of the purchaser, Creelman. It was admitted that the agreement was a good and binding one. But the defendant contended that the plaintiff had not earned their remuneration because, the sale never having gone through, they /had not, in fact, brought to him a purchaser. The Magistrate thought this proposition could not be maintained. When the agent had introduced a purchaser, who, as the result, paid a deposit and signed a binding agreement to purchase, the agent's title to remuneration had accrued, It may be true that the defendent got, in this case, a lawsuit and not a purchaser, but this was a contingency which tho vendor must be taken to have contemplated, and was a contingency, any way, for which tho agent was not responsible. The first case which stated this view of the law appeared to be Holford v. Wilson, 1807. But there were modern cases to the same ' effect, of which he quoted Piatt v. Depree, L.R. 101; Grogan v. Smith, ■■ in Court of Appeal, 7 Times, L.R. 132. , The result was that when the agent i introduced a purchaser who executed i a binding contract of sale, he gamed ■ his remuneration. Then what amount s was the plaintiff entitled to recover I in this case ? There was no agreement > regulating the amount of commission, . nor was there any evidence of a ' customary rate. ; On a quantum meruit, the S.M. allowed £2O, the amount which the doi feudant, it appeared, was at one time i prepared to give upon a completed sale, : with costs.

The Magistrate added, upon the first point decided in this judgment, that since the hearing, counsel for the plaintiff had handed to him a newspaper account of* a case in the New Zealand Court of Appeal, just decided, Latter v. Parsons, which appeared to bo in Hue with the Englisn cases, and another authority in favour of the view ho had taken.