Hadfield v. Skelton

• Decision Date: 12 October 1886
• Citation: 29 N.W. 639,66 Wis. 634
• Parties: HADFIELD v. SKELTON AND OTHERS.
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

66 Wis. 634

29 N.W. 639

HADFIELD

v.SKELTON AND OTHERS.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

October 12, 1886.

Appeal from circuit court, Milwaukee county.Frank M. Hoyt, for respondent, George A. Hadfield.

Cotzhausen, Sylvester, Scheiber & Sloan, for appellants, Helen M. Skelton and others.

ORTON, J.

About the twenty-second day of April, 1886, one H. T. Skelton, the husband of Helen M. Skelton, one of the appellants, acted as her agent, and agreed to sell to the respondent the premises in question, belonging to her, for the sum of $6,500, and the sum of $150 was paid down, and the balance was to be paid about the fifteenth day of May following, and a deed to be executed therefor. The said Helen M. Skelton was informed of said sale on the second day of May, and she did not repudiate the same until the fourteenth of May following; but then informed said respondent that she would not sell the premises for that price, and that her said husband had no authority to sell the same for her, and on the same day she contracted to sell the premises to the appellant Eliza Bartlett for $7,000; and on the next day, about the same time of the commencement of this action and the filing of the lis pendens, she made to said Bartlett a deed. About the time of the sale to the respondent he went into full possession of the premises, except a house on the front end of the lot, and repaired the barn at a cost of $200, and laid a sewer on the premises at considerable cost, and was in the peaceable and notorious possession, and had property in said barn, when the appellant Knight, about the eighteenth day of May, broke open said barn, removed and changed the locks thereon, and took forcible possession of the premises, and retains and withholds them from the respondent; and, when the respondent attempted to go into said barn, he had him arrested and prosecuted for trespass. Said Knight occupies the house on said premises as lessee of said Helen M. Skelton, and said house was to be delivered to the respondent on said fifteenth day of May by said contract of sale. The appellant Eliza Bartlett, who occupies the adjoining premises, instigated the acts of said Knight in taking such forcible possession of the barn and premises other than the house, and in prosecuting said respondent for trespass. The respondent tenders the purchase money with his said suit, and demands a conveyance.

These facts so appear substantially in the complaint and affidavits filed on the motion for...