Broker — Real estate — Commissions — Principal and agent — Agent representing both sides.
Where a real estate broker attempted to act as agent for both the seller and buyer, without disclosing to the seller that he was acting in a dual capacity, he cannot recover a commission for the sale of the property.
It is a rule of public policy that an agent for the sale of real estate cannot at the same time act as agent for the purchaser thereof and thus become entitled to compensation from both vendor and vendee.
Argued April 23, 1926.
PER CURIAM, July 8, 1926:
The plaintiff, a licensed real estate broker, sought in this action to recover commissions, alleged to be due by the defendant for services rendered by the plaintiff in the purchase of nineteen houses and the land on which they were built. The plaintiff assigns for error the refusal of the court below to take off a judgment of compulsory non-suit, which had been entered at the trial. The opinion filed by Judge CARPENTER, of the court below, in overruling the motion to take off the non-suit, which will appear in the report of this appeal, states the facts and vindicates the conclusion at which he arrived. The testimony of the plaintiff clearly established that he had attempted to act as agent for both seller and buyer, without disclosing to the seller that he was acting in that dual capacity. The case is ruled by the decision of the Supreme Court in Everhart v. Searle, 71 Pa. 256, which decision we have repeatedly followed: Marshall v. Reed, 32 Pa. Super. 60; Evans v. Rockett, 32 Pa. Super. 365.
The judgment is affirmed.