24 Pa. 190 | Pa. | 1855
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
One of these parties sold the other certain fixtures in a store for a price much beyond their real value. The vendor had no title whatever to the things sold, and the vendee seeks to be indemnified for his loss. The question is, whether he can recover back the sum which he paid for the fixtures, or whether his measure of damages must be restricted to their actual value.
When suit is brought on a contract and in affirmance of it, the verdict should make the plaintiff -whole; that is, put him in .as good a condition as if the contract had been performed. He cannot swell his damages by proving that the bargain he sues on was a-bad one. When he deals in morus multieaulis trees, as in Smethhurst v. Woolston (5 W. & Ser. 109), and takes the guarantee
But all these rules apply only to cases where the suit is brought on the contract. When the party injured has a right to treat it as rescinded and sue in disaffirmance of it, he may recover back his purchase-money, or so much of it as he has paid. This distinction is not only recognised, but strongly laid down, and earnestly insisted on in Smethurst v. Woolston, and it is so obviously well founded in reason that it needs no illustration. It is not necessary now to classify or enumerate the cases in which a purchaser may elect to sue on the contract, or to disaffirm it by an action for the purchase-money. But the plainest of all cases for the rescission of a contract, is the sale of an article which the vendor did not own, and had no right to sell. When the purchase-money paid on such a contract is demanded back the vendor cannot say to the injured party, “ It is true I sold you what was not mine to sell, but I sold it at a price twenty-fold greater than it was worth, and I claim to keep the difference as a reward for my ingenuity.” In Charnley v. Dulles (8 W. & Ser. 361), it is broadly held that the purchaser of a chattel who gets no title may recover back his money without proving either fraud or express warranty. This of course is to be understood as of a case in which the suit is in disaffirmance of the contract. In the
It is proper to add that what I have said is based on that state of the facts which the bill of exceptions presents. I do not mean-to say what the verdict ought to be, but merely that the judge misinstrueted the jury, when he confined them to the value of the articles, in estimating what the defendant should be allowed for the fixtures which he alleges that he bought, but never got.
Judgment reversed and venire facias de novo awarded.