15 Ga. App. 205 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1914
Martin, a real-estate dealer, sued Boberts in a justice’s court for a commission of $100 on a “land deal.” In that court judgment was rendered for the plaintiff. The defendant’s appeal to the superior court resulted likewise in a verdict in favor of the plaintiff for the $100 commission, with interest. The defendant excepts to the judgment overruling his motion for a new trial, based upon the usual general grounds and also upon certain exceptions to the charge of the court. The judge does not approve the first special exception; and states that the contentions set forth in this ground of the motion for a new trial were mere oral contentions of the counsel in the argument at the trial; and the only plea of the defendant that we find in the record is a mere general denial of indebtedness.
A review of the evidence shows that while the defendant in his testimony strenuously denied ever having made any contract with the plaintiff, other than the agreement to pay him $100 for the sale, at a stipulated price, of certain property which the defendant
Under the testimony the court did not err in charging the jury that if they believed that the plaintiff was to negotiate and procure for the defendant a purchaser of certain real estate belonging to Long, and if they believed that in pursuance of that agreement the plaintiff did enter into negotiations for such real estate belong1 ing to Long, and in the county of Lowndes, and carried out this contract with the defendant, and further believed that the defendant agreed to pay him $100, then the plaintiff would be entitled tó recover. Nor did the court err in charging the jury that if they believed that the plaintiff entered into negotiations with the purpose of carrying out the contract with the defendant (if there was such a contract), and that, incident thereto, the plaintiff rendered services with respect to the purchase of the land from Long, on behalf of the defendant, which amounted to the procuring cause and culminated in the purchase by the defendant from Long, in
The only other question raised is also controlled by the jury’s decision upon the testimony, as to whether the contract under which the plaintiff was employed contemplated a sale of the property at Adel, in Berrien county, or the purchase by Roberts of Long’s property in Yaldosta. According to the plaintiff’s testimony, the sale of the property in Adel was a mere incident in accomplishing the object sought by the defendant, to wit, the purchase of the Yaldosta property, with the Adel property to be accepted by the seller as part of the purchase-price.
The rulings stated in the headnotes do not require elaboration further, than to say that the trial judge, following the ruling of this court in Ford v. Thomason, 11 Ga. App. 359 (75 S. E. 269), Horsley v. Woodley, 12 Ga. App. 456 (78 S. E. 260), and similar cases, instructed the jury substantially to the effect that the plaintiff could not recover commissions upon any land deal he might have made, in pursuance of a previous contract with the defendant, unless it appeared that he had registered and paid the special license tax according to the provisions of section 978 of the Civil Code; and error is assigned upon the instruction on this subject, though the only complaint is to the effect that the instruction was not adjusted to the evidence; it was not insisted that the instruction was not abstractly correct as a matter of law. Of course, since the ruling in Toole v. Wiregrass Development Co., supra, the right of the real-estate dealer to collect his commissions can not be defeated upon the ground that he has failed to register or pay the special tax imposed by law; and, therefore, the instruction upon this subject was immaterial, and, for the reasons stated in the headnote, harmless.
•There was no error in refusing a new trial.
Judgment affirmed.