Becker v. Clark

• Decision Date: 28 December 1914
• Docket Number: 12029.
• Citation: 145 P. 65,83 Wash. 37
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: BECKER v. CLARK et al.

145 P. 65

83 Wash. 37

BECKER v. CLARK et al.

No. 12029.

Supreme Court of Washington

December 28, 1914

Department 1. Appeal from Superior Court, Spokane County; Henry L Kennan, Judge.

Action by John Konrad Becker against Robert Wm. Clark and others. From a judgment for defendants, plaintiff appeals. Reversed with directions to render judgment for plaintiff.

V. T Tustin, of Spokane, for appellant.

John M Gleeson, of Spokane, for respondents.

GOSE J.

This is an action in equity to rescind a contract for the purchase of a section of land near Babine Lake in the province of British Columbia, and to recover a judgment for $1,600, the amount paid upon the contract, with legal interest from the date of its payment. There was a judgment dismissing the action. The plaintiff appealed.

The appellant, a German farmer of the Catholic faith, 67 years of age, residing at Colton in Whitman county, this state, in the month of April, 1913, entered into a contract with the respondent Clark and the respondent corporation for the purchase of the land in question. The contract price was $6,400. $1,600 was paid when the contract was signed. The negotiations were all carried on, and the money was paid at Colton. The land is 1,700 miles distant from Colton. The appellant had never seen the land, and had no information of either its quality or desirability, except such as he acquired from one Hopkins, the selling agent of the respondents. This fact was known to Hopkins. The appellant and two of his witnesses, Ernest Becker and John Reisenauer, farmers living in the vicinity of Colton, the former a brother of the appellant, testified that Hopkins represented that the land was the center of a German Catholic settlement, and and that a Catholic church would be erected on the adjoining section during the summer of 1913. The appellant testified that it was upon these representations he contracted, and that without them he would not have contracted at all. He further said that it was his purpose to take two or three German families with him and move upon the land within a year or two and make it his home. There were no settlers other than Indians within five miles of the land. The whole country was a forest primeval. There were two Indian Catholic churches, each about 12 miles from the land, and Indian villages at these points. The agent Hopkins testified in respect to his representations about the German Catholic settlement as follows:

'Q. Then about the Catholic settlement, you knew that Mr. Becker was interested in having a Catholic settlement there in case he bought? A. He told me that he would be. Q. You knew at that time that the prime reason for his buying there was that there was a Catholic settlement there, and he would move into it, and there would be a church built the coming year? A. No, sir. Q. Didn't he tell you that? A. He didn't tell me that would be his main object because he had no authority to tell me that would be. Q. He had no authority? A. No, because I hadn't told him there was a Catholic settlement. I told him if he bought there, which he might do, that we could probably interest a great many other Germans there who were Catholics and would sell to them, and they could all live there together if they wanted to.'

In respect to the building of the church, he testified:

'The facts are I did not tell him there would be a church built there on section 13 or any place else right in there, not naming any particular point. Q. Did you name any particular time? A. No, no particular time, but that if he bought there, he being a Catholic, that other Catholics would probably buy there, and I could see no good reason why they couldn't have a church there at any time they wanted it.'

It is important to note that the respondents' agent sought the appellant at the latter's home in Colton and induced him to make a contract for the purchase of land 1,700 miles distant, which the agent knew the appellant had not seen. The agent knew that the appellant was a German Catholic and that he wanted land in a German Catholic settlement. To the appellant the presence of a German Catholic settlement around the property was a material fact, and the representation that it existed was an inducing cause for the purchase. Aside from the questions of race sentiment and religious belief, it is a well-known fact that the character of the neighbors materially affects the market value of property. The trial court said that there was a preponderance of evidence to the effect that Hopkins represented that the land was in the heart of a German Catholic...