22 N.Y.S. 788 | New York Court of Common Pleas | 1893
The defendant’s demurrer raises the issue whether the complaint sets forth facts which would entitle the plaintiff to the relief demanded. The charge in fact is that the plaintiff labored under a mistake as to her legal rights under her lease, and, being misled and induced by the representations of the defendant and his agent to waive those rights, executed a lease by which she was compelled for 21 years to pay a rental nearly double that which would have been fixed by appraisement under the terms of the lease. By the terms of that instrument the rent for the renewal was to be 4 per cent, upon the value of the lot, considered as vacant and unimproved. The representation which misled the plaintiff as charged is that the restrictions with which the use of the lot was incumbered, and which, owing to the extreme changes . in the character of the neighborhood, must greatly affect its value, could not be considered by the appraisers in estimating such value, but that the plaintiff would have to pay 4 per cent, upon the value of the lot as vacant and unrestricted. This was a representation of the legal effect or construction of the existing lease, and, if relied upon by the plaintiff to her injury, would afford ground for equitable relief. Though not a representation of fact, but of law, yet, being induced by the representation of the defendant, it