Silver's Lunch Stores, Inc. v. Lee

Headnote

Principal and agent ■ — ■ brokers — action to recover secret profits alleged, to have been realized by a real estate broker in a real estate transaction wherein he was employed.

Silver’s Lunch Stores, Inc., v. Lee, 222 App. Div. 748 , affirmed.

Appeal from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the first judicial department, entered December 30, 1927, affirming a judgment in favor of defendant entered upon a verdict. The action was

to recover secret profits alleged to have been gained by defendant in a real estate transaction wherein defendant acted as broker for plaintiff’s assignor. The complaint alleged that plaintiff’s assignor had employed defendant to obtain a purchaser for a dominant lease; that defendant obtained a purchaser who was willing to purchase only if a sublease was canceled; that defendant, .as part of his employment, undertook to procure a cancellation of the sublease which he did in consideration of a substantial payment to the sublessee by plaintiff’s assignor; that thereupon the sale of the dominant lease went through and defendant was paid the agreed commission; that thereafter plaintiff’s assignor learned that defendant had also received a commission out of the money paid by it to secure the surrender of the sublease. The answer was that plaintiff’s assignor had full and complete knowledge of the transaction.