21 Barb. 585 | N.Y. Sup. Ct. | 1854
The evidence of fraud in the • purchase of the property in question by Arts is certainly not very decisive, yet I think there was enough to prevent a non-suit. ' The circumstances proved were sufficient to justify the
The case concedes that Arts, when he made the purchase, made no statements or representations, one way or the other, in relation to his pecuniary condition. It is not pretended that any artifice or device was resorted to, for the purpose of obtaining the property. Still, it is possible to avoid the sale for fraud. As fraud vitiates every contract where its taint is found, so here if the purchase was in fact made with a preconceived design not to pay for the property purchased, the plaintiffs had a right to rescind the sale. The question presented upon the trial was one of motive. It was, not whether Arts was solvent or insolvent when he made the purchase, but whether he acted with an honest or dishonest design. This was a question for the jury. I think it was error to withhold it from them. “ A deduction of fraud may bef made,” says Kent, “ not only from deceptive assertions and false representations, but from facts, incidents and circumstances, which may be trivial in themselves, but decisive evidence, in the given case, of a fraudulent design.”
Judgment accordingly.
Wright, Harris and Watson, Justices.]