CURRAN & MACDONELL, INC., A CORPORATION, APPELLANT,
v.
ANGELICA PEARRE, APPELLEE

Fla. 1st DCA | 1967-10-05
No. I-419
WIGGINTON, C. J., and SPECTOR, J., concur.
202 So. 2d 858 Florida District Court of Appeal, First District (1967) Positive Treatment
Cited by 16 cases

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.

Synopsis

A real estate brokerage firm appealed the dismissal of its action to collect a commission from a property seller. The court held that by striking language from the contract making the commission payable only upon closing and by deleting the provision requiring the seller to pay commission if she refused to perform, the seller clearly reserved the right not to close the transaction and therefore the broker earned no commission when the seller refused to proceed.


Holding

The broker did not earn a commission. The seller's deletion of the language requiring payment of commission if the seller refused to perform, combined with the typed provision making commission payable only upon closing, clearly and specifically reserved to the seller the right to refuse to close the transaction without liability for commission.


Key Quotes

“The commission shall become payable only upon closing this transaction”

The typed language the seller substituted for the deleted provision, which conditioned the broker's right to commission on actual closing

Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Facts & Procedural History

Curran & MacDonell, Inc., a real estate brokerage firm, solicited a sales contract from the seller's agent. The seller's agent prepared the contract u…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court
RAWLS, Judge.

RAWLS, Judge.

By this action, Curran & MacDonell, Inc., a real estate brokerage firm, seeks to collect a commission for procuring a ready, willing and able buyer of real estate owned by Ap-pélleé, 'Pearre. The chancellor dismissed Appellant’s complaint with prejudice, hence this appeal.

The brokerage firm contends: It earned a commission from the seller by delivering an executed contract from the prospective buyer and at this time the seller arbitrarily refused to close the transaction. The seller rebuts upon the theory that she had reserved the right to “back out” on closing the sale and the broker’s commission was by the contract not payable until the transaction was closed.

For the purpose of this appeal, the allegations of the complaint must be taken as true. The brokerage firm solicited from the seller’s agent a contract specifying the terms and conditions upon which the property would be sold. The seller’s agent prepared such a contract by filling in blank spaces of a printed form and striking out certain language. Of particular significance is that the seller struck out the following language set out in the printed contract, to wit: “In the event buyer fails to perform and the deposit aforesaid is retained, the amount of such deposit shall be applied first in payment of attorney’s fees, abstract or title charges and expenses, incurred by seller and the broker, or either of them, and the balance shall be divided equally between the broker and the seller provided, however, that the amount to be retained or received by the broker shall not exceed the full amount of said commission, any excess to be paid to the seller. If the transaction shall not he closed because of refusal of the seller to perform, then seller'shall pay *859 said commission in full to the broker on demand[Emphasis supplied.] Substituted for this stricken paragraph was the following concise typed sentence: “The commission shall become payable only upon closing this transaction.”

We are not confronted with an instrument as described in Mark v. Hahn,1 where Justice Hobson, speaking for the Supreme Court stated, “On the other hand, • it does not appear quite so clearly that the seller reserved unto herself the right to renege in the instant suit, indeed there is room for the implication that the seller would do nothing to interfere with the actual closing of the deal. * * * We are impelled before turning from the subject discussion to say by way of caveat, that in Codorno when we used the expression ‘specific agreement to the contrary’ we meant exactly that. We did not mean that a listing could be worded in such manner as to require the astuteness of the proverbial ‘Philadelphia lawyer’ to determine that the seller intended to reserve until [sic] himself the right to change his mind or back our arbitrarily at any time he might see fit and thereby avoid payment of a commission.”2

The last printed sentence of the cited instrument provided that if the seller failed to perform, then the seller would be liable for payment of the broker’s commission. As stated above, this sentence was lined out by the seller. The services of a “Philadelphia lawyer” were not required by the broker in order for him to comprehend that the seller by so deleting this provision said in effect: “I will not pay you a commission if I refuse to perform”. The specificity as defined in Mark v. Hahn was met by the intent as shown by coupling the deletion with the typed provision, “The commission shall become payable only upon closing this transaction”. The chancellor’s order dismissing the complaint with prejudice is

Affirmed.

WIGGINTON, C. J., and SPECTOR, J., concur.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • Warter v. Bancroft Hotel Assocs., 285 So. 2d 676 (Fla. 3d DCA 1973)
    …of the above letters that the seller intended to reserve unto himself the right to change his mind or back out arbitrarily at any time he might see fit and thereby avoid payment of a commission. See Curran & MacDonell, Inc. v. Pearre, Fla.App.1967, 202 So. 2d 858. In short, the commission agreement in the instant case was precisely formulated, explicit, positive, direct, readily understood by a layman, and admitted of no misunderstanding. Mark v. Hahn, supra. Accordingly, for the reason stated here-inabove,…
  • Fenton v. Teichman, 277 So. 2d 562 (Fla. 3d DCA 1973)
    …PER CURIAM. Affirmed on the authority of Curran & MacDonell, Inc. v. Pearre, Fla.App. 1967, 202 So. 2d 858.…
  • Harbour INN, Inc. v. Kagan, 343 So. 2d 1353 (Fla. 2d DCA 1977)
    …The cause is remanded for further proceedings on the remaining count. SCHEB, J., concurs. GRIMES, J., dissents with opinion. . Accord, Warter v. Bancroft Hotel Associates, 285 So. 2d 676 (Fla. 3d DCA 1973) and Curran & MacDonell, Inc. v. Pearre, 202 So. 2d 858 (Fla. 1st DCA 1967).…

Previewing 3 of 8 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw