Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

55 Ark. 574

Hill v. Jebb

Supreme Court of Arkansas

Decided March 19, 1892

Supreme Court of Arkansas · decided 1892-03-19

<p>Rial estate broker—Commission.</p> <p>A party who employs a broker to sell real estate, .reserving the right to make a sale in person, will not be liable for the latter’s commission if the latter procures a purchaser without notice that his employer had previously sold the land to another.</p>

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““Nor does it matter that, after an independent sale by the proprietor, the broker, without notice thereof, found a purchaser; for his agency had then expired by the terms of its creation, and, as he accepted the terms, he could not complain of the result. (Citing cases.) n“If it be a hardship that a broker who has found a purchaser should lose his commissions, the fact is due to his accepting employment liable to be terminated at any time by a sale made without his agency.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including Wing v. Davis

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1892-03-19

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently March 1952

8 state decisions

501892190019101920193019401950decided

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 →

Hemingway, J.

¶1The employment of a broker to sell a. tract of land constitutes a special agency, and when a sale is made the only purpose of the agency is accomplished,, whether the sale be due to or independent of the acts of the-agent. If the proprietor in' employing the broker reserves the right to make a sale in person, independently of the broker, this imports a notice to the latter, and an agreement by him, that the proprietor may make a sale without the-agency of the broker and thereby terminate it. If the compensation of the broker is dependent upon his consummating-a sale, he can ask nothing unless he was the procuring cause-of a sale made, or obtained a person- ready and willing to-purchase upon the terms authorized before the agency terminated by any lawful means. Nor does it matter that,, after an independent sale by the proprietor, the broker, without notice thereof, found a purchaser; for his agency had' then, expired by the terms of its creation, and, as he accepted the terms, he could not complain of the result. Mechem on Agency, sec. 969; Ahern v. Baker, 34 Minn., 98 Dole v. Sherwood, 43 N. W. Rep., 569; Lane v. Albright, 49 Ind., 275; Dolan v. Scanlan, 57 Cal., 261;

¶2If it be a hardship that a broker who has found a purchaser should lose his commissions, the fact is due to his accepting employment liable to be terminated at any time by a sale made without-his agency.

¶3The court properly declared the law, and we find no error in the record prejudicial to the appellant. Affirm.

/55/ark/574 · .json · Public domain