James v. City Investing Co.

• Decision Date: 04 May 1911
• Citation: 188 F. 513
• Parties: JAMES et al. v. CITY INVESTING CO. et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

188 F. 513

JAMES et al. v. CITY INVESTING CO. et al.

United States Circuit Court, S.D. New York.

May 4, 1911

Atwater & Cruikshank, for complainant.

Philip S. Dean, for defendants City Investing Co. and others.

Blandy Mooney & Shipman, for defendant Morgenthau & Morgenthau Co.

COXE Circuit Judge.

The amended bill is filed to have a deed made by complainants to one Charles H. Dow and an alleged ratification thereof made respectively, September 1, 1903, and October 30, 1903 declared null and void. The bill also prays that subsequent conveyances to the defendants be declared invalid as clouds upon the complainants' title. The deeds in question cover the property at the corner of Fifty-Sixth street and Broadway known as the 'Rockingham' property and purport to cover the two-thirds interest of the complainants therein. These deeds have been put on record and the property has been conveyed several times since and is now claimed by the defendants, who succeeded to the title conveyed to said Dow. The complainants contend that the conveyances by them to Dow were obtained by fraud and are forgeries in whole or in part. It is not pretended that the defendants, other than Dow, had any knowledge of the fraud and it was stated on the argument that Dow had disappeared. The bill is not multifarious.

The principal object of the special demurrer is to have paragraphs viii, x and xiii of the bill made more definite and certain. As the testimony in equity actions in the federal courts is usually taken out of court with frequent adjournments for the convenience of parties, it is altogether probable that the defendants will be informed fully as to the precise nature of the complainants' contention long before they will be required to produce their testimony. No great hardship would follow, therefore, if the defendants were to join issue on the bill in its present form. However they are entitled to definite information as to the nature of the complainants' cause of action in order that they may meet it by their answers and proofs. It is said that the complainants are advanced in age and it may well be that their memories are defective as to the conversations and transactions with Dow and the inducements held out by him which resulted in the execution of the deeds. But, on the other hand, they are not, for this reason, relieved of the obligation to present a more definite statement of the cause or causes of action than appears by the bill in its present form.

The allegations are inconsistent, indefinite and contradictory. If the complainants' names were forged to the deeds a precise averment to that effect should be made. If the signatures are genuine and the contents of the deeds was altered or the description of the 'Rockingham' property subsequently added, these facts...