Hyperlawhypertext legal database Goldsmith v. Cook 13 N.Y.S. 578

← Cases

Goldsmith v. Cook

13 N.Y.S. 578 Court N.Y. City Ct. Decision date 1890-12-24 English

Contents

Majority

p. 578
Goldsmith v. Cook.
(City Court of New York. General Term.
December 24, 1890.)

Headnote

Real-Estate Broker—Commissions—Defenses.
Where a real-estate broker has performed his contract by procuring a purchaser ready to pay the agreed price, the fact that the owner has also employed another broker, and paid him for effecting a sale to a third person, is no defense to an action by the first broker for his commissions.
p. 579
Appeal, from trial term.
Action by Isaac Goldsmith against Valentine E. B. Cook for commissions as a real-estate broker. There was a verdict and judgment in plaintiff’s favor, and defendant appeals.
Argued before MoAdam, C. J., and Van Wyck, J.
Smith Tuttle, for appellant. J. &. Mitchell, for respondent.

The plaintiff swears that the defendant employed him as a broker to sell the realty in question for $13,000; that he procured Marx Binaldo as a purchaser at that price, and that the defendant refused to sell unless Binaldo paid $250 more for the property, which Binaldo refused to do. The defendant denied the employment, and claims that on the same day he sold the property to Annie E. Crooker for $13,150. The evidence was conflicting, and the case had to go to the jury. The fact that the defendant employed and paid another broker, who effected a sale to another person, was not a defense; and the evidence respecting it was incompetent, and therefore properly excluded. Jarvis v. Schaefer, 105 N. Y. 289 , 11 N. E. Rep. 634 . It is settled that when one of the contracting parties either prevents or waive-, the literal performance of a condition precedent, which the other is ready and offers to fulfill, he cannot avail himself of such non-performance to relieve him from his own obligation. Moses v. Bierling, 31 N. Y. 463 ; Risley v. Smith, 64 N. Y. 576 ; Bank v. Drumgoole, 109 N. Y. 63 , 15 N. E. Rep. 747 . The evidence sufficiently sustains the verdict, and we find no error requiring a new trial. Judgment affirmed, with costs.

Cases cited