Strand v. Griffith

• Decision Date: 19 June 1901
• Citation: 109 F. 597
• Parties: STRAND v. GRIFFITH et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Minnesota

109 F. 597

STRAND v. GRIFFITH et al.

United States Circuit Court, D. Minnesota, Fourth Division.

June 19, 1901

Henry J. Gjertsen, for plaintiff.

A. B Jackson and Mark L. Dougherty, for defendants.

LOCHREN District Judge.

The several petitions of the defendant Griffith and of defendants Buck and Campbell for a new trial of the above-entitled cause were heard on May 11, 1901, when counsel for the respective parties submitted oral arguments, since supplemented by briefs. The cause was tried at the present March term of this court, and resulted in a verdict in favor of the plaintiff against the defendants Buck, Campbell, and Griffith (who were the only defendants served) for the sum of $2,000; a previous trial having ended by a disagreement of the jury. The complaint alleged: That on and prior to the 29th of October 1896, the plaintiff, being a resident of the state of Washington, and the owner of described real estate of great value, there situate, and desirous of engaging in the retail dry-goods trade at New Whatcom, in that state, but having no experience in that business, or knowledge of the value of such goods, the defendants, knowing of all these facts, for their mutual profit and gain fraudulently conspired together to cheat and defraud the plaintiff out of his said real estate by false and fraudulent representations as to the quality, quantity, value ownership, condition, and character of a stock of dry goods, clothing, furnishings, and notions which they then had, in closed boxes, in said Griffith's warehouse; which conspiracy they successfully carried out by such false representations, among which were representations that said goods were owned by defendant Skinner; were new, up to date, and first-class; and that defendant Griffith, on the security of said goods, had loaned to said Skinner $3,500, which must be paid; and that the stock was worth $11,000 at wholesale invoice prices. That by various specified artifices of the defendants the plaintiff was prevented from examining said goods, giving said Skinner plaintiff's promissory notes for $3,700, and a conveyance of three tracts of said land, worth $7,300, therefore; and agreeing to leave the said goods in said warehouse till the notes were paid. That, being unable to pay said notes, he afterwards obtained the goods of said Griffith by giving him a chattel mortgage thereon and upon other goods, and a mortgage on the remaining tracts of his real estate. That the goods, upon being received by plaintiff and opened, were found to be old, shelf-worn, moth-eaten, and unsalable, and not worth more than 10 per cent. of said sum of $11,000; and were afterwards mostly taken from him by said Griffith, as was also the remainder of such real estate, by foreclosure of said mortgages.

This application for new trial must turn, so far as defendant Griffith is concerned, upon the question whether there was any evidence in the case which justified the jury in finding that he had any participation in the alleged conspiracy. It appeared that he was, and for many years had been, a warehouseman in the city of Minneapolis, that he is a man of considerable wealth, and sometimes made loans on the security of goods deposited in his warehouse; and that the defendants Buck and Campbell, who were merchandise brokers of said city had rented from Griffith a room in his warehouse, which was entirely under their own control, and in which they had at that time the said goods in boxes. There is no evidence that Griffith had any ownership or interest in these goods, or any knowledge concerning them, except a general knowledge that Buck and Campbell had goods of some description in their rented room; or that he had any part or knowledge in or about the alleged conspiracy, or any information of the bargaining or sale of the...