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186 F.2d 355

Docket No. 10460.

Quick v. Pointer

District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals

Argued Oct. 4, 1950.

Decided Nov. 30, 1950.

District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals · decided 1950-11-30

3 counsel of record

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“This is an appeal from a judgment of the District Court for damages for breach of a contract to sell real estate * * *. The contract was for a price of $16,000. Ten days after the contract was made, and before settlement day, the purchaser made a contract for a resale at $19,500. It then appeared that the original vendor did not have title * * *. His vendee sued. The trial court * * * gave judgment for $3,500, the difference between the prices in the two contracts.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 255 F. Supp. 302 - Cohen v. Lovitz

“the difference between the contract price and the fair market value of the property.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Rogers v. Lion Transfer & Storage Co.

Relies on Thompson v. Rector · Peoples Mortg. Corp. v. Bedrosian · Bedrosian v. Peoples Mortgage Corp.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1950-11-30

How this case has been cited

Cited by 30 later decisions — most recently January 2015 · most notably 78 Wis. 2d 373 - Pleasure Time, Inc. v. Kuss (1977), Aboud v. Adams (1973)

10 federal appellate · 3 district · 17 state decisions

1301950196019701980199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1Mr. Josiah Lyman, Washington, D. C., for appellant. Mrs. Kathryn M. Schwarz also entered an appearance for appellant.

¶2Mr. Samuel R. Blanken, Washington, D. C., with whom Mr. Morris Benson, Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for appellee Pointer.

¶3Mr. John Ward Cutler, Washington, D. C., with whom Mr. Leonard A. Block, Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for appellee Baker.

¶4Before CLARK, PRETTYMAN and BAZELON, Circuit Judges.

¶5PRETTYMAN, Circuit Judge.

¶6This is an appeal from a judgment of the District Court for damages for breach of a contract to sell real estate and for a real estate agent’s commission. The contract was for a price of $16,000. Ten days after the contract was made, and before settlement day, the purchaser made a contract for a resale at $19,500. It then appeared that the original vendor did not have title, being part but not full owner of the property. His vendee sued. The trial court, without other evidence as to damages and without other finding on the point, gave judgment for $3,500, the difference between the prices in the two contracts.

¶7The established rule in this jurisdiction is that damages under these circumstances are the difference between the contract price and the fair market value of the property.1 No mention of fair market value appears in this record, either in the evidence or in the findings. The judgment for the vendee must therefore be reversed on that point.

¶8There was sufficient evidence to support the trial court’s conclusion that the *356real estate agent produced a buyer ready, able and willing to buy. That was all the agent had to do in order to become entitled to his commission. The dispute as to whether he knew that his client was not full owner of the property was an issue of fact upon which the evidence conflicted. The judgment as to the commission is affirmed.

¶9Affirmed in part and reversed in part.

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