Slater v. Rauer

RICHARDS, J.

This is an appeal by the plaintiff from a judgment in the defendants’ favor after an order sustaining their demurrer to the plaintiff’s amended complaint, the latter having declined to amend.

The action is one for the specific performance of a contract for the sale of real estate purporting to have been ¡made with the plaintiff by a firm of real estate agents on

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behalf of the defendant Bauer, claiming to act as such agents and having the right to make said contract of sale under an alleged authorization so to do executed by Bauer. The complaint sets forth the contract of sale and the alleged authorization

in haec verba,

and the only question for decision presented to the court upon appeal is as to whether said authorization was sufficient in its terms to empower the said agents to execute the contract of sale in question and to bind the defendants thereby to execute a conveyance to the plaintiff of the premises in question, the defendant Doyle having been given a conveyance of the property by Bauer after the execution and recordation of the aforesaid contract of sale.

[1]

The authorization upon which the plaintiff relies is headed “Authority to sell” and is addressed to Pollard & Son, the firm of real estate agents who attempted to make the contract of sale by virtue of its terms. It states: “You are hereby exclusively authorized to sell and receipt for a deposit on sale of the following described property.” Here follows the description. The authorization then proceeds to fix the price at which the property shall be sold at twenty thousand dollars, “or such lower figure as I may agree to accept,” and then provides that the undersigned, J. J. Bauer, is “to furnish a good and sufficient conveyance free from all encumbrances.”

The appellant contends that this authorization was sufficient to empower the said firm of Pollard & Son to execute the contract of sale of the premises described herein to him for the purchase price of twenty thousand dollars, and that he is entitled to have such contract of sale specifically performed by said Bauer and his subsequent transferee.