Walker v. Soule

• Citation: 138 Mass. 570
• Parties: Isaiah Walker, Jr. v. Harvey Soule
• Decision Date: 27 February 1885
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

138 Mass. 570

Isaiah Walker, Jr. v. Harvey Soule

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

February 27, 1885

Argued October 22, 1884.

Plymouth.

Tort. The declaration was as follows: "And the plaintiff says that the defendant, in the year 1861, was the duly qualified administrator of the estate of Joseph Pierce, deceased; that he falsely and fraudulently represented to the plaintiff that, as said administrator, he was lawfully authorized licensed, and empowered by the Probate Court of said county to sell the real estate of said deceased; that by the defendant's said false representation, and fraudulent concealment of the facts, in relation to the true state of the title to said real estate, he falsely and fraudulently induced the plaintiff to pay to the defendant the sum of seven hundred and fifty dollars, giving to the plaintiff a pretended deed of said real estate, which said deed was wholly void and worthless; that the plaintiff did not learn or have any knowledge of the fraudulent statements, acts misrepresentations, and concealments of the defendant, in relation to said title, until within six years now last past.

"And the plaintiff further says that the defendant sold him a certain lot of land, fully described in a copy of a deed hereto annexed; and, to induce the plaintiff to buy said land, the defendant falsely represented to the plaintiff that he had good right to sell said land to the plaintiff, that the title thereto was good, and that the deed thereof, which the defendant then and there gave the plaintiff, a copy of which is hereto annexed, was the proper form of deed to be given, and was a sufficient deed to pass the property in said real estate.

"That the plaintiff, wholly relying upon said representation, was thereby induced to buy a deed of said land, and was thereby and by other acts, misrepresentations, and misstatements of the defendant, then and there induced not to examine the record of the title of said real estate, and said title was not good to said real estate; that the defendant had no right to sell the said property, as aforesaid, to the plaintiff; the deed aforesaid was wholly invalid, and void; all of which the defendant well knew; and the plaintiff did not learn that said title was invalid, and that the defendant had defrauded him, the plaintiff, until within six years now last past."

Writ dated May 26, 1883. The answer set up the statute of limitations.

At the trial in the Superior Court, before Gardner, J., the defendant admitted the facts set forth in the...