Chain

Plaintiff brought this action for an accounting, alleging that defendants, whom he had employed as brokers to represent him in the purchase of certain real property, had been guilty of fraud in the execution of the'ir agency and that they had wrongfully converted to their own use certain moneys with which he had entrusted them. Plaintiff recovered judgment and defendants have appealed.

Substantially the following facts are shown by the evidence or were found by the trial court: Defendants, who are real estate brokers, were employed by plaintiff as his agents to negotiate for the sale to him of certain real property in the city of Bakersfield owned by one Chin Ten and upon which was situated a hotel. After accepting the employment defendants, for the purpose of cheating and defrauding plaintiff, denied that they had been employed as the latter’s agents to negotiate for the sale of the property to him and claimed that they themselves had bought the property from Chin Yen and that they were reselling it to plaintiff as his vendors; and in furtherance of their purpose to defraud they falsely and fraudulently represented to plaintiff that the purchase price of the property was…