E. M. Glynn, Inc. v. Duplantis

189 So. 2d 84, 1966 La. App. LEXIS 4933
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedJune 13, 1966
DocketNo. 6676
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 189 So. 2d 84 (E. M. Glynn, Inc. v. Duplantis) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
E. M. Glynn, Inc. v. Duplantis, 189 So. 2d 84, 1966 La. App. LEXIS 4933 (La. Ct. App. 1966).

Opinion

LOTTINGER, Judge.

The plaintiff herein, E. M. Glynn, Inc., filed suit naming as defendants Mrs. Olive T. Duplantis and others, wherein he prayed for judgment against the defendants in the amount of $25,887.69. In its petition, the petitioner recited that the defendants were owners of several contiguous tracts of land in the Parish of Terrebonne, Louisi.ana, and that the corporation, through its President, E. M. Glynn, in January of 1964, began contacting the defendants to acquire a real estate listing for the sale and/or lease of those properties. The petition alleged further that the defendants orally agreed to pay the plaintiff a real estate commission amounting to five per cent of the gross rentals should the petitioner find a satisfactory tenant for the premises. The plaintiff alleged further that it, through its President, expended much time and effort in obtaining a satisfactory tenant and that it did on April 28, 1964, arrange a meeting between the defendants and representatives of a concern with whom the defendants later executed a lease. The petitioner alleged that it was excluded from the negotiations shortly after bringing the parties together, and that subsequently the defendants and the concern which it had obtained for them as a tenant entered into a long term lease. The petition finally alleged that it was only through the diligent efforts of the petitioner that the lease was perfected. The amount prayed for in the petition apparently represents five per cent of the total rental to be paid to the defendants over the entire term of the lease.

The defendants filed an exception of no right of action or cause of action wherein they alleged that the plaintiff’s petition disclosed no right or cause of action as the plaintiff was not a licensed broker, under the provisions of R.S. 37:1431-37:1459 as it had never filed with the Clerk of the Seventeenth Judicial District Court or with the Clerk of any other Parish, the bond required under the provisions of R.S. 37 :- 1447, contending that the filing thereof is required by R.S. 37:1448. The exception went on to state that under the provisions of R.S. 37:1450, the plaintiff could not maintain a suit for alleged brokerage fees earned while plaintiff was not a duly licensed broker. The exceptions were subsequently taken up and tried and the District Court overruled the exception of no cause of action, but maintained the exception of no right of action. It is from this judgment that the plaintiff has appealed devolutively to this Court, assigning three specifications of error on the part of the Trial Judge.

These assignments of error are: 1. That the Court erred in considering affirmative defenses on an exception of no right of action over the objection of the appellant, 2. In finding as a fact that the appellant was not a real estate broker duly licensed under the laws of the State of Louisiana, and 3. In finding as a fact that appellant has not filed a real estate broker’s bond with a Clerk of the Seventeenth Judicial [86]*86District Court in and for the Parish of Terrebonne or any other Parish as required by the laws of the State of Louisiana.

With reference to the first assignment of error relative to the alleged error on the part of the Trial Court in considering what counsel for appellant styles affirmative defenses on an exception of no right of action, counsel asserts that an allegation relative to the absence of a broker’s license and/or broker’s bond is an assertion that the contract is illegal, and further that the illegality of a contract is an affirmative defense and affirmative defenses are not triable prematurely by exception. As authority for this last statement he cites Article 1005 of the Code of Civil Procedure. That article reads as follows:

“The answer shall set forth affirmatively arbitration and award, assumption of risk, contributory negligence, discharge in bankruptcy, division, duress, error or mistake, estoppel, extinguishment of the obligation in any manner, failure of consideration, fraud, illegality, injury by fellow servant, transaction or compromise, and any other matter constituting an affirmative defense. If a party has mistakenly designated an affirmative defense as an. incidental demand, or an incidental demand as an affirmative defense, and if justice so requires, the court, on such terms as it may prescribe, shall treat the pleading as if there had been a proper designation.”

Our appreciation of this article is that it delineates certain specified affirmative defenses, identifies those pleas named in the article as affirmative defenses, and states that they, and any other matter constituting an affirmative defense, shall be set forth affirmatively in an answer to a demand or petition. We do not believe that an allegation relative to the absence of a broker’s license and/or a broker’s bond is necessarily an assertion that the contract is illegal. Certainly this article does not stand for the proposition that the illegality of a contract is exclusively an affirmative defense nor does it stand for the proposition that an affirmative defense is not triable prematurely by exception. Counsel also cites the case of Ruiz v. Trocchiano, 38 So.2d 184 (La.App.1949); Kaufman Agency v. Viccellio, 174 So. 709 (La.App.1937) as-authority for the proposition that the absence of a broker’s license is an affirmative defense to be proved by the defendants. These cases were decided long before our Code of Civil Procedure was enacted.

We do not believe that the allegation of lack of a bond and/or license by the plaintiff as urged by the defendants is necessarily an affirmative defense. They have styled this defense an exception of no right of action and no cause of action. In Vegas et al. v. Cheramie et al. (La.App.1953), 69 So.2d 66, we had occasion to consider the distinction between and the purposes of an exception of no right of action and one of no cause of action. In that case, we said:

“While we recognize that it is common practice in the State of Louisiana to combine exceptions of no right and no cause of action, the fact remains that there is a decided difference between the two. This difference has perhaps been best explained by Professor Henry G. McMahon in 11 Tulane L.R. 527, 532 and 533 as follows:
‘There is no doubt that in a number of cases the plaintiff’s lack of interest in the litigation has been raised through the medium of the exception of no cause of action. But despite the fact that the latter has been employed successfully in a number of cases where no question was raised as to its applicability, a difference between the respective functions of these two exceptions obtains in modern Louisiana procedure. This distinction has been pointed out by the writer elsewhere, when it was said, in stating the difference of function between the ex[87]*87ception of no cause of action and that of no right of action, that:
The former is used to raise the issue as to whether the law affords a remedy to anyone for the particular grievance alleged by plaintiff; the latter is employed (in cases where the law affords a remedy) to raise the question as to whether plaintiff belongs to the particular class in whose exclusive favor the law extends the remedy or to raise the issue as to whether plaintiff has the right to invoke a remedy which the law extends only conditionally.

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Related

Jary v. Emmett
234 So. 2d 530 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1970)
E. M. Glynn, Inc. v. Duplantis
190 So. 2d 240 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1966)

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Bluebook (online)
189 So. 2d 84, 1966 La. App. LEXIS 4933, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/e-m-glynn-inc-v-duplantis-lactapp-1966.