23 A.D. 70 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1897
Judgment affirmed, with costs, on opinion of the Special Term.
All concurred.
The following is the opinion of the Special Term :
I find that the plaintiff was not induced to make the conveyance in question by false and fraudulent representations by the defendant. She acquired title in fee to the two lots of land in Mount Vernon, N. Y. (Nos. 925 and 949), covered by the conveyance, in 1854.. She removed from this country to Honduras in 1860, and has resided there ever since. She paid no taxes upon the said land thereafter. It was vacant and abandoned. Lot 925 was sold for non-payment of general annual taxes eight times between January, 1871, and March, 1877, and lot 949 eleven times between August, 1863, and November, 1893, for terms of 1,000 years in every instance, except three terms-of 40, 75 and 500 years. Two tax leases were made thereunder of lot 925 for terms of 40 and 500 years, in 1872 and 1878, and two of lot 949 for terms of 75 and 1,000 years, in 1864 and 1873. On December 10,1894, the defendant (an attorney and counselor at law) wrote to. the United States consul at Honduras requesting his services't-o get from the plaintiff a release to the defendant of her title to the said lots, and another lot at College Point, Long Island, and offering $200 for such conveyance. Upon this letter, and proof that the said two lots are now worth about $2,500 each, the claim of false and fraudulent representations is rested. The letter in so many words made the consul the defendant’s representative to negotiate the matter, and promised him a fair compensation for his services. The consul broached the matter to the plaintiff and gave her the letter. The part containing the
But the plaintiff did not make the conveyance in reliance upon the defendant’s statements. She placed his said letter and the whole matter in charge of an attorney in New York city for investigation and advice. He conferred with the defendant, considered the tax sales, and advised the plaintiff by letter that, if she desired to bring
Objection was made by the plaintiff to the admission as evidence of the letters of Rohrbach to her, tending to show that this action was instigated and is conducted by the tax lease owners and occupants of the said lots for their benefit, instead of being a genuine and meritorious appeal by the plaintiff to the aid of equity. But it makes no difference whether said letters be deemed in evidence or out.
The rules of evidence of the common-law courts were never adopted or followed in the Court of Chancery. In suits in chancery, errors in the admission or exclusion of evidence never were ground for reversal of the judgment, provided that, disregarding the evidence erroneously admitted, or duly considering the evidence erroneously excluded (which latter, however, could only be done where its extent and force' were manifest), the decision was just, and adequately supported by legal evidence. This rule in equity was such a matter of course to bench and bar in preceding generations, that it is quite impossible to find any equity case, except in recent years, where there was any question of it, or any confusion as between it and the stricter rule applied,, upon review, to errors in the admission, or rejection of evidence in actions in the common-law courts. The only question that arose over it was whether, when an issue of fact was sent out of chancery for trial in a common-law court before a jury, and the verdict and proceedings were certified back to chancery, the errors of the common-law judge in admitting and excluding evidence had to be regarded, upon a motion to set aside the verdict, the same as in the common-law courts, but it was held otherwise, viz.,, that as the verdict of
It is true that in Foote v. Beecher (78 N. Y. 157) the learned ' chief judge in his opinion says: “ There is no distinction between actions of a, legal and .those of an equitable nature, in respect to the availability of exceptions taken upon the trial, upon the admission of incompetent evidence, and no reason is perceived for such a dis
Judgment for defendant.