SALES OF HOTELS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18551, 10 November 1934, Page 12

SALES OF HOTELS

COMMISSION CLAIM PAILS JUPGMENT DELIVERED A nonsuit on the whole of the claim has been entered by Mr. R. M. Watson, S.M., in a reserved judgment on the case in which Cox’s, Limited, a Napier firm of land and estate agents, claimed from Ballin Bros., wine and spirit merchants, of Christchurch, £175 ns commission allegedly due to them tor the sale of the Patutahi Hotel, or alternately £245 as damages for alleged breach of contract for the sale of the Patutahi and Rangitaiki hotels. It was claimed by the plaintiffs that in May of 1031, Mr. Otto Ballin, as agent of the defendants, who were mortgagees, placed the Patutahi Hotel for sale in the hands of the plaintiffs. The hotel at that time was owned by John James Henry Hall. The defendants completed ah agreement fdr sale and purchase with Thomas Hugh Crutehley, who agreed to'-purchase the hotel for £(5500, and paid the plaintiffs £250 as deposit. Plaintiffs were entitled to £175 commission in this sale. Hi August of the same year the parties to the contract mutually agreed to its cancellation. The defendants, through their solicitors, applied to the plaintiffs for the refund of the deposit, 'find, according' to the “statement of claim, in consideration for that appointed the plaintiffs sole agents for the sale of the hotel, and also undertook that if they (the defendants) should sell the Rangitaiki Hotel as mortgagee, then the sale, would be effected through the plaintiffs'. The Patutahi Hotel was later s'bld, but not through the agency of the plaintiffs. With regard to the claim for commission on tlie sale of the Patutahi Hotel, Air. Watson says in the course of his judgment: '“’The only evidence tendered' by plaintiffs indicates that Hall (the then owner of the hotel) and not the defendant was vendor and the only principal of the plaintiffs, but if that should not be the ease —if the defendant company put itself in the position of a principal or otherwise rendered itself responsible to plaintiffs —I am unable To find satisfactory proof of this from the. evidence tendered' to me. In my opinion, therefore, plaintiffs should be nonsuited on their claim for commission against defendant company. ” Regarding the plaintiffs’ claim for damages for breach of warranty of authority to sell the Patutahi Hotel, His Worship says that whatever claim plaintiffs might or might not have had against Hall in respect of revocation some two months and 12 days later by Hall of the authority created by the latter, and the subsequent sale by Hall to a Mr. Parker through the agency of H. B. Cockburn, there was no proof, or evidence, before the Court that Ballin Bros., Limited, had anything to do with the revocation of the authority or the sale to Parker. Plaintiffs therefore must, in his opinion, be nonsuited in respect of their claim, for damages in reference to the Patutahi Hotel. His Worship nonsuited the plaintiffs also in their claim against defendant for damages in respect of the Rangitaiki Hotel, as it appeared to him that plaintiffs had not proven their case. Defendants were allowed £fi 3s fid costs. •