Summary
affirming jury verdict in favor of salesman under an oral contract but remanding for a determination of whether the salesman was an employee entitled to fees under section 448.08
Summary of this case from Kovar Law Grp. v. JordanOpinion
No. 98-4162.
Opinion filed October 6, 1999.
Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, Broward County; Jeffrey E. Streitfeld, Judge; L.T. No. 96-14127 (14).
Nelson A. Faerber, Jr. of Faerber Cliff, Naples, for appellant.
Thomas F. Luken, Fort Lauderdale, for appellees.
Although the terms of the parties' oral contract were in dispute, the jury accepted that version of the contract put forward by appellees, where Craig Titus was entitled to a commission for parts sales that had been completed at the time of his termination, even if appellant's books showed that Titus had a warehouse inventory of parts ("debits") that exceeded Titus's credits. The damages awarded were within the range presented by the evidence, taking into consideration the differences between plaintiffs' and defendant's spreadsheet exhibits.
We grant appellees' motion for attorney's fees contingent on either the trial court's finding of their entitlement to fees under section 768.79,Florida Statutes (1997), or a finding that Titus was not an independent contractor, such that he would be entitled to fees under section 448.08, Florida Statutes (1997). See Cox v. Hammond Co., Inc., 566 So.2d 936, 937 (Fla. 4th DCA 1990); Miller v. Perez, 524 So.2d 1084, 1086 (Fla. 4th DCA 1988).
AFFIRMED.
STONE, POLEN and GROSS, JJ., concur.