Section — Gury-Ballerini, Compendium of Moral Theology (8th ed., 1884)
§ IV. On Sale Through Brokers
Sale through brokers is that which is not made immediately by him to whom the things belong, but through others by commission, and these are called brokers. Brokers, moreover, can be either only friends, or hired for this by a special wage, or hired for diverse works at an annual price.
- Questions. - Q. 1. Whether a broker who sells above, or buys below, the price designated to him can retain for himself the excess of the price?
Resp. Negatively, generally speaking. The reason is that he has no title for retaining anything. For 1. not by reason of the thing, because it is not his, but the owner's; 2. nor by reason of labor and skill, at least as owed under the strict title of justice, because if he is hired by a stipend, he has a right to nothing else; but if he furnishes his skill gratuitously, he has already renounced the wage 1. - St. Lig. n. 825 and others commonly.
1 Understand that through this the wage has been abdicated, at least the wage which is owed by the strict title of justice.
Except 1. if by extraordinary and undue labor, or by wholly special skill or diligence, he has made the thing better; 2. if the owner has expressly or equivalently declared that he exacts nothing beyond the determined price: for then the excess can be retained; 3. if the owner has known the broker's manner of acting and has ratified it. - Thus commonly the Theologians.
- Q. 2. Whether a broker can buy for himself a thing to be sold at the price determined for him, and afterwards sell the same thing as his own at a higher price?
Resp. Affirmatively, with two conditions posited, namely 1. that, moral diligence having been applied, he does not find a buyer who offers more; for otherwise he would act against his office and the certainly known will of the mandator; 2. that he buy the thing for himself not fictitiously, but truly, so that he undergo its risk; and if by chance he does not sell it for so much, nevertheless he pay back the determined price; for otherwise equity is not preserved. - Thus commonly.
Q. 3. Whether a broker can retain for himself those things which the seller gratuitously gives solely on account of him?
Resp. Affirmatively, if there is certainty concerning a true donation; because, speaking absolutely, a merchant can yield something from his own profit to some broker, so that he may bring him to his own shop; but for this it is required that he be really disposed to sell to any other person at the higher price, and in fact ordinarily sell thus. But the confessor ought not easily to give faith to brokers asserting that such donations were made to them. - St. Lig. n. 825. - Hom. apost. n. 189.