Van Gilder v. Kamper

<p>Abstract of the Decision.</p> <p>1. Trial, § 193*—impropriety of directed verdict if evidence to sustain recovery. In an action for a real estate commission, where the evidence was conflicting, the court’s refusal to allow the cause to go to the jury does not raise the question of preponderance of the evidence, but whether the jury could without acting unreasonably, in the eye of the law, find a verdict in favor of the theory of the plaintiff under the evidence.</p> <p>2. Bbokebs, § 89*—sufficiency of evidence as to whether contract was covered hy license. Where plaintiff’s theory of the evidence was that a contract for the exchange of properties dated prior to the renewal of his license as a real estate broker was treated by all parties as null and void and that after another license had been issued to him he renewed his efforts to procure an exchange of the properties, inducing defendant to come from Mississippi to Chicago to negotiate another contract in regard to the same properties, and that the terms were agreed upon in plaintiff’s office and that instead of returning to his office to close the deal, according to their understanding, defendant and the purchaser a few days later signed a written contract, in Michigan, for the purpose of avoiding the commission, under the terms of which contract the properties were transferred, held that it was error to refuse to allow the cause to go to the jury on plaintiff’s theory.</p> <p>3. Brokers, § 90*—evidence as to ability,of purchaser to perform. In an action by a broker for a real estate commission, where although it appeared that a third party did not have title to property which he agreed to exchange for defendant’s, there was evidence tending to prove that he had a right to demand that the property be deeded to himself or to any one whom he might designate, and he actually procured the delivery of the property to the defendant in exchange for the property mentioned in the contract as belonging to the defendant, evidence held to require submission to the jury the question whether such third party was ready, able and willing to carry out his part of the contract for the exchange of the properties.</p>