Thorp v. Hough
| Decision Date | 03 July 1913 |
| Parties | THORP v. HOUGH ET AL. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from District Court, Fayette County; A. N. Hobson, Judge.
Action for deceit practiced in a land deal. Affirmed.Hasner & Hasner, of Independence, for appellant.
Hageman & Farwell, of Waverly, and Ainsworth & Hughes, of West Union, for appellees.
This appeal comes to us on exceptions taken to the action of the court, in rendering judgment in defendant Hough's favor on his counterclaim, in which he asks damages against the plaintiff in the sum of $2,250, with interest from July 1, 1907. Defendant claims damages by reason of deceit and fraud practiced upon him by the plaintiff, in a land deal. Defendant Hough states his cause of action in his counterclaim substantially as follows: In June, 1907, and prior thereto, plaintiff fraudulently represented to him that, owing to the financial embarrassment of the owner of a certain 1,400 acres of land in Taylor county, Wis., the plaintiff would be able to buy said land for the sum of $12,000, which he claimed was much less than its value; that plaintiff was unable to swing the deal alone, and he asked defendant to take a half interest in the land, and that if he would, he might have it at actual cost; that plaintiff and defendant would hold the land jointly and sell it as soon as possible, for their joint account; that if defendant would join in the purchase of the land, he would be required to pay only one-half the actual price that the owner was receiving. Plaintiff represented the full price to the owner to be $12,000, and, in furtherance of the fraud plaintiff exhibited a deed from the owner, in which the consideration named was $12,000. That in truth and in fact the price moving to the owner was not $12,000, as represented by plaintiff, and as stated in the deed, but was only $7,500. That the consideration named in the deed had been padded for the purpose of deceiving defendant. That plaintiff then had a contract from the owner whereby the owner had bound himself to convey the land for $7,500. That plaintiff knew that his aforesaid statements as to the amount that the owner was receiving were false, and that the consideration in the deed was padded, and that the price in fact was only $7,500, and that he made said statements fraudulently, as aforesaid. That defendant relied upon said statements and representations as being true, and believed they were true, and in reliance thereon took a half interest in the land and paid therefor the sum of $6,000. That defendant had no knowledge as to the value of the land, and relied wholly upon plaintiff, and that he would not have bought the land had he known that the price to the owner was only $7,500. That in truth and in fact the owner received only $7,500 for all of said land. Defendant demanded judgment on his counterclaim for $2,250, with interest from July 1, 1907. To this claim plaintiff replied, admitting that defendant paid $6,000 for one-half interest in the land, but denying all other allegations, and especially denying that defendant was damaged in any sum by reason of the facts alleged in his petition, and alleging that defendant bought the land after having fully inspected the same. Upon the issues thus tendered, the cause was tried to the court, and judgment rendered for the defendant on his counterclaim in the sum of $2,835. From the judgment so entered, plaintiff appeals and assigns as error: (1) That the court erred in rendering judgment against the plaintiff for the reason that, if the court found as a matter of fact that the plaintiff did represent to the defendant that he paid $12,000 for the land that he was selling an undivided one-half interest in to the defendant for the sum of $6,000, still it was shown to the court that the defendant had disposed of his undivided one-half interest therein for at least a net cash profit to him, on the transaction, of $3,000, and therefore the defendant had sustained no damages by the alleged false representation. (2) There was no evidence in the case of any measure of damages that would justify the court in rendering a judgment against the plaintiff for any amount. (3) That, if the action be regarded as for money had and received, in excess of that which should have been paid on the basis of agency, then the judgment should have been only for $250 and interest.
The first error assigned is predicated on the fact, disclosed by the record, that the defendant, subsequent to the purchase of the land from the plaintiff, sold the same for a sum in excess of the amount paid, and therefore the defendant was not damaged, or in other words, that the land received was actually worth a sum in excess of the amount paid by the defendant therefor. The second error assigned rests on the thought that the measure of damages in such cases is the diference between the actual value of the land and what it would have been worth had it been as represented, and that there is no evidence in the record to support any such measure of damage. The third error assigned proceeds upon the theory that the representations complained of relate only to the value of the land, and that such representations were as to the quality of the land, and that therefore the measure of damage would be the difference between the value of land as represented and its actual value.
In plaintiff's presentation of this case, he proceeds upon the theory that the rights of the parties to the controversy must be determined by the same rules which should, and would, govern had this been a direct purchase by the defendant from the plaintiff of...
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