The Federal Reporter with Key-Number Annotations, Volume 250: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit Courts of Appeals and District Courts of the United States, August-October, 1918. Page: 609
xv, 1025 p. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this legislative document.
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MANDEVILLE V. MACDONALD
for commissions. They claimed, and the case was left to the jury on their
claim, that the contract of March 25th was a promise to pay for services ren-
dered after that conversation, at the defendants' direction to ascertain whether
the corporation would sell the stock.
C. E. & S. M. Cuddeback, of Port Jervis, N. Y. (John B. Knox and
George S. Graham, both of New York City, of counsel), for plaintiffs
in error.
Bacon & Rorty, of Goshen, N. Y. (Albert Ritchie, of New York City,
and P. O. Rorty, of Goshen, N. Y., of counsel), for defendants in er-
ror.
Before ROGERS and HOUGH, Circuit Judges, and LEARNED
HAND, District Judge.
LEARNED HAND, District Judge (after stating the facts as
above). The verdict establishes the plaintiffs' version, but not the suf-
ficiency in law of the language used. Taken literally there was, of
course, no consideration, so that the case resolves into whether the
connotation of the words justified a finding of consideration. Nor-
mally the consideration was that usually undertaken by brokers, i. e.,
that they should bring the parties together; but this the plaintiffs ex-
pressly disclaim. Yet on their own showing the commission was
payable only if the sale went through. In order to establish any con-
sideration, therefore, the language must have implied a request for
services which might not result in bringing the parties together. Fur-
ther, the request for services might be satisfied by action which
resulted in a complete failure by the plaintiffs in their negotiations, and
which left the defendants nothing with which they could avail them-
selves when they came to an independent subsequent negotiation. This
must be imputed to the defendants in the face of a proposal from the
plaintiffs on November 12, 1913, of the usual broker's contract, de-
pendent upon success.
Now, of course, a buyer might promise anything; he might agree to
pay for failure as well as for success, but clearly he must say so pretty
plainly, and here we have nothing but words which normally mean no
more than the conventional agreement. We cannot agree that, with
every allowance for the latitude of a jury in the interpretation of spo-
ken words, these words admitted any such meaning. The implied re-
quest was for services which might result in bringing Purdy to terms.
If the meaning was that the plaintiffs should be paid for services which
ended in nothing, the contract must have so stated.
Judgment reversed, and new trial ordered.
2-50 F.-39
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The Federal Reporter with Key-Number Annotations, Volume 250: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit Courts of Appeals and District Courts of the United States, August-October, 1918., legislative document, 1918; Saint Paul, Minnesota. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc38821/m1/624/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.