A listing broker sells an office building to a syndicate of which the broker is a member without informing the seller of this interest. Before closing, the seller discovers the broker’s interest and refuses to sell. What would happen in a civil suit to collect a commission?

Civil commission disputes are adjudicated in civil court, not transferred to the Real Estate Commissioner, who handles administrative licensing matters such as license suspension or revocation rather than contract disputes between parties.

While the broker clearly breached their fiduciary duty of disclosure, the automatic denial of commission applies most cleanly when the transaction does not close or when the seller successfully rescinds; since the sale was completed and the seller received the benefit, a court would not automatically bar the commission in a civil suit.

There is no legal mechanism called a 'mitigation hearing' in California civil commission litigation; mitigation is a principle applied to damages calculations, not a separate hearing type that courts order in broker commission disputes.