Hall v. Swanson
| Decision Date | 12 January 1926 |
| Docket Number | 37005 |
| Citation | 206 N.W. 671,201 Iowa 134 |
| Parties | MAY E. HALL, Appellee, v. L. A. SWANSON et al., Appellants |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Polk District Court.--HUBERT UTTERBACK, Judge.
ACTION at law to recover damages on account of an alleged conspiracy between defendants to defraud the plaintiff by inducing her to make an exchange of property rights in three Polk County Iowa, lots which she had bought on contract, known as Lots 10, 11, and 12 of Casebeer Orchards, for property rights in three Des Moines, Iowa, lots, known as Lots 26 and 28 of Willoughby Acres and Lot 23 of Roosevelt Park. There was a trial to a jury, and verdict for plaintiff in the sum of $ 1,225. From the judgment entered, defendants appeal.
Reversed.
M. E Van Laningham, Harold Thomas, George Harnagel, and Henry H Griffiths, for appellants.
John D. Denison, for appellee.
DE GRAFF, C. J.
The case at bar was commenced as an action to recover damages on account of alleged fraudulent representations made by the defendants respecting the value of certain equities in Lots 26 and 28 of Willoughby Acres and Lot 23 of Roosevelt Park, and the damage claimed was in the sum of $ 3,000. By amendments to the petition, the claim is made that the defendants entered into a conspiracy to defraud the plaintiff by representing that the equities in Willoughby Acres and Roosevelt Park were of more value than they actually were worth.
A conspiracy to defraud, in so far as civil liability may be predicated thereon, is fairly well defined. It is essential that there be some designed and positively fraudulent artifice employed, or that a fraudulent intent should exist on the part of the parties sought to be held, and that such fraud or artifice should be practiced on the party defrauded. A mere conspiracy to commit a fraud is never of itself a cause of action. It must be proved that there was a conspiracy to defraud and a participation in the fraudulent purpose, either in the scheme or in its execution, which worked injury as a proximate consequence. A conspiracy cannot be made the subject of a civil action unless something is done which, without the conspiracy, would give a right of action. Jayne v. Drorbaugh, 63 Iowa 711, 17 N.W. 433; Bitzer v. Washburn, 121 Iowa 462, 96 N.W. 978.
The fraud alleged in the petition is that the defendants misrepresented the value and condition of the lots in Willoughby Acres and the value of the equity of the lot in Roosevelt Park, and that, if the properties in Willoughby Acres and in Roosevelt Park had been as represented by the appellants, they would have been worth $ 3,000 more than they actually were worth. This appeal calls for a determination whether or not any fraud was practiced by any of the defendants upon the plaintiff. Her complaint is that she was unacquainted with real estate values: that Hall representing the Corn Belt Land Company, had once done her a good deed, and seemed fatherly; and that Hall and others, with the defendant L. A. Swanson, represented that the equity in the Willoughby Acres...
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