Dawe v. Morris
| Decision Date | 10 May 1889 |
| Citation | 149 Mass. 188,21 N.E. 313 |
| Parties | DAWE v. MORRIS. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
F.A. Wyman and A.A. Wyman, for plaintiff.
J.B Warner, for defendant.
The alleged misrepresentation of the defendant, by which the plaintiff avers that he was induced to enter into a contract for building 30 miles of the Florida Midland Railway, are that the defendant had purchased a certain quantity of rails at a certain price, and that he would sell those rails to the plaintiff at the same price, if he would make such contract. The plaintiff's declaration alleges that the defendant had not then purchased the rails, and did not sell, and did not intend to sell, any rails so purchased to the plaintiff and that, by reason of the contract into which plaintiff was induced to enter, he was obliged to purchase a large number of rails at a much higher price than that named by the defendant, to his great injury. That if the formalities required by law, in order that contracts for the sale and delivery of goods of the value here in question may be enforced, had been complied with, those facts would constitute a contract upon a valuable consideration, will not be questioned. The plaintiff does not seek to recover upon this contract, but in an action of tort in the nature of deceit, because he was induced to enter into the contract with the Florida Railway Company by reason of the representations above set forth.
A representation, in order that, if material and false, it may form the ground of an action, where one has been induced to act by reason thereof, should be one of some existing fact. A statement, promising in its character, that one will thereafter sell goods at a particular price or time, will pay money, or do any similar thing, or any assurance as to what shall thereafter be done, or as to any future event, is not properly a representation, but a contract, for the violation of which a remedy is to be sought by action thereon. The statement by the defendant that he would thereafter sell rails at a particular price, if plaintiff would contract with the railway company, was a promise, the breach of which has occasioned the injury to the plaintiff. Knowlton v. Keenan, 146 Mass. 86, 15 N.E. 127.
The plaintiff contends that, even if this is so, the representation that the defendant had then purchased the rails at the price named was material and false; but, if the allegation that the defendant had purchased the rails be separated from that of the promise to sell them to the plaintiff, it is seen at once to be quite unimportant and immaterial. Had the defendant actually sold, or had he been ready to sell, the rails at the time and price he promised that he would, no action could have been maintained by reason of any false representation that he had purchased them when he made his promise, and no possible injury could thereby have resulted to the plaintiff.
It is urged that, independent of any promise to sell to him, if the plaintiff had believed that defendant had purchased rails at the price at which he said he had purchased them, the plaintiff might thus have been induced to believe that he himself could thereafter purchase them at the same price. But the injury from a false representation must be direct, and the probability or possibility that because the defendant had purchased at a particular price the plaintiff would be able or might believe himself to be able, to do so also, is too remote to...
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