Dillon v. Hill

• Decision Date: 01 June 1915
• Docket Number: No. 17366.,17366.
• Citation: 178 S.W. 85
• Parties: DILLON et al. v. HILL et al.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

178 S.W. 85

DILLON et al. v. HILL et al.

No. 17366.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 1.

June 1, 1915.

Rehearing Denied June 30, 1915.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Lawrence County; Carr McNutt, Judge.

Action by T. J. Dillon and others against D. C. Hill and others. From judgment for defendants, plaintiffs appeal, Affirmed.

John L. McNatt, J. B. McGuffin, and H. H. Bloss, all of Aurora, for appellants. I. V. McPherson, of Aurora, and W. B. Skinner, of Mt. Vernon, for respondents.

BOND, J.

Plaintiffs complain of defendants for having fraudulently procured them to purchase one-half of the capital stock of a mining corporation known as the Golden Jack Mining Company, which was incorporated for $100,000. They set out the terms of the contract of purchase, by which they were to pay the sum of $12,000 at stated intervals, and whereby a mortgage upon the property of said corporation should be extended for a year and other terms of the trade, and aver that, to induce plaintiffs to enter into said agreement of purchase, the several defendants conspired to cheat, wrong, and defraud plaintiffs, "and sell them said stock, which was utterly worthless and of no value, and used the following deceptive means"; that defendants, knowing that their co-defendant John Boseley had borne "personal, business relations" with plaintiffs, planned that he should represent to them, who were inexperienced in mining matters; that he (Boseley) was desirous of becoming personally interested in the stock of said mining company, and would buy $5,000 of its capital stock, and would pay therefor the same rate that plaintiffs contracted to pay, and would not receive any compensation from defendant Loy, the proposed vendor of said stock; that said Boseley was, in truth, paid $1,500 by his codefendant Loy to induce plaintiffs to buy said stock, and was, in fact, to pay nothing for the 5,000 shares to be allotted to him.

The petition sets forth a description of the mining property of said corporation, and among other things states:

That a shaft had been sunk to a depth of 200 feet, with drifts at bottom extending north and south; that at the south end of the south drift there was a small face of zinc ore of about 3 feet high and 30 feet wide, and "extending northward from said base of ore about 45 feet, said drift inclined downward of an angle about 45 degrees, which by miners is called a `stope'; that as mining had progressed in said mine said small face of ore was growing less and rapidly pinching out; that in order to conceal the true condition of said mine defendant mined ore bearing ground from the head of said south drift, and had it distributed over the surface of said `stope' so that plaintiffs could not ascertain whether said `stope' was ore-bearing ground or not, and were also unable on account thereof to determine the extent or dimension of the face of the ore in said south drift; that the face of the ore in the head of said drift ran about 4 or 5 per cent. in pure zinc ore, and the said `stope had practically no ore in it at all;" that defendants arranged the mine in this way before defendant John Boseley made the aforesaid representations to plaintiffs.

The petition then concludes in the following terms:

"That, believing these statements and representations of the said Boseley, plaintiffs were induced to visit said mine, and were taken down and shown said south drift, and the defendants then falsely and fraudulently represented to the plaintiffs that the said stope in said south drift was all ore-bearing ground, equally as rich as the ore they could see in place in the head of said drift, and that the face of ore in the head of said drift would easily be 40 feet wide by about 30 feet high, and would run at least 4 per cent. pure ore, and it was also represented by defendants that they had sufficient pumping machinery to handle the water in said mine, that they could begin immediately to mine on said ore as soon as certain needed improvements were made, and that the milling capacity and everything considered that they had now on hand to mine with, after making such improvements, would easily result in an ore output of 16 tons of pure ore for every 24 hours of time. and that, considering the market price of ore, the cost of labor, and all necessary ingredients, and material to mine with, would result in a clear profit of $3,348 per week, all of which could be accomplished by mining said face of ore in south drift, and all of which statements were false and untrue, and were known to be false and untrue by the defendants, and by reason of said concealment said statements were believed by plaintiffs and...