145 P. 11 | Or. | 1914
delivered the opinion of the court.
It appears that the plaintiff, August Telschow, was a man of advanced years, uneducated and ignorant of business ways. He obtained title under the homestead laws to a quarter section of land in a remote part of Lane County. He had been living on this place for a long time, when the defendant Carl Tucker and wife came to live with him. As time went on the plaintiff gained confidence in Tucker, and there was some talk between them in regard to trading the former’s land for a farm in the "Willamette Valley. Pursuant to this talk, on the 18th of June, 1912, plaintiff and Tucker went to Florence, where Telschow executed and acknowledged a deed of the land with the name of the grantee in blank, the possession of which was retained by plaintiff for some time. When Tucker started for the Willamette Valley, Telschow permitted him to take the deed with authority to trade the land for a farm of equal worth in the valley. Tucker had no authority to insert the name of the grantee in the deed or deliver the same, except upon the conditions stated by the plaintiff. Tucker went to Portland, Oregon, retained the deed until August, and wrote the plaintiff that he
The Circuit Court found, and the evidence shows, that Quiggle knew of the conditions attached to the authority conferred upon Tucker by plaintiff, knew that Tucker had no authority to make the exchange, and that Quiggle was a party to the fraud practiced in the transaction. Quiggle had never seen the Lane County land, and had no knowledge of the same, except such as he received from Tucker. The trial court found that the manner in which the deed was obtained was a species of larceny. About four days after Quiggle obtained the deed, he traded the land to defendant Kelly for the furnishings and lease of a rooming-house in Portland, known as the “Otis Rooming-house,” and received a bill of sale therefor. Quiggle, as a witness for defendants, testified that he gave Kelly all the information, in regard to the land in question, that he received from Tucker. After the execution of the deed, June 18, 1912, Telschow resided upon the land, and was in the exclusive, open and notorious possession thereof, and knew nothing about the pretended transfer to Quiggle until about the 15th of October of that year, when he immediately commenced this suit.
“The most that can be said for Kelly is that the transaction was a ‘sight and unseen’ trade so far as concerned the Lane County property; and certainly the exercise of ordinary prudence, based upon the information possessed by Kelly and the aforesaid circumstances, would have betrayed the fact that plaintiff had been wickedly defrauded.”
The decree of the lower court is right, and should be affirmed; and it is so ordered. Affirmed.