8 Paige Ch. 559 | New York Court of Chancery | 1841
As the respondent has not thought proper to answer the allegations in this bill, every thing stated therein which goes to show that the complainant has a claim to relief of any kind, in this court, must be taken as true. From those statements, it appears that during the prevalence of the speculating mania, which recently afflicted so many of the citizens not only of this state but of the whole union, the complainant was induced to purchase of the defendants, Salmon and Simonson, three small lots in a lithographic village to be located upon Staten Island, at the price of sixteen hundred dollars ‘ which lots are now of no value except for the purpose of pasturage, and are not worth more than one sixteenth of the sum he agreed to pay for them. One fourth of the purchase money was paid down by the complainant, and the bond and mortgage in question were given by him, to Salmon and Simonson, to secure the payment of the residue of the $1600, with interest thereon. The bill further states, that Salmon and Simonson exhibited a lithographic map of the future village ; on which map it was stated that a dock would be made upon a part of the property, in the immediate vicinity of the lots sold to the complainant; which statement on the map was made for the purpose of enhancing the value of the property ; and that in the negotiation of the sale between them and the complainant such map was referred to as a constituent part of the contract, and as explanatory of the intentions of the vendors in relation to the property. The bill also states, that in order to persuade the complainant to make the purchase they promised and assured him that the tract of land which was to be the scite of the village, and of which the lots sold to him formed a part, should be laid out into lots ; that the streets should be opened and filled up or graded with
The question presented for the consideration of the court upon this bill certainly is not without its difficulties. It cannot be said to be a case of original fraud, as the bill does not state that the assurances and promises of the vendors, as to the building of the dock and the laying out and opening of the streets, &c. were not made in good faith at the time these lots were sold. But if they have since found it would not be for their interest to lay out and improve the contemplated village, and to build the dock, in conformity with the promises and assurances which they held out to the complainant to induce him to give this extravagant price for some of the village lots, it certainly does appear to be inconsistent with the principles of equity, as well as of sound morality, that they should now compel him to pay this bond and mortgage j after he has already paid four times as much as the lots are actually worth if those contemplated improvements should not be made.
The case of Donelson v. Weakley, (3 Yerg. Rep. 178,) decided in our sister state of Tennessee, in 1832, in which the opinion of the court was delivered by Chief Justice Catron, now one of the judges of the supreme court of the United States, appears to be an authority directly in favor of sustaining the complainant’s bill in the present case.
Upon the authority of that case, and on the equity arising from the several matters stated in this bill, I shall reverse the decision of the court below, and overrule the demurrer with costs. But I express no opinion as to the nature or extent of the relief which the complainant will be entitled to if all the facts stated in his bill shall eventually turn out to be true ; as the case made by the bill may be materially varied by the answer and the proofs,