81 Neb. 678 | Neb. | 1908
In February, 1906, the plaintiff Williams owned a stock of general merchandise at Stamford, Nebraska, and the defendant Wightman was the owner of 320 acres of land in Logan county, Nebraska. The plaintiff’s petition is quite vague in its allegations, but we gather from the statements contained therein that Wightman represented that he had negotiated a sale of his Logan county land to one Clary for $3,200, of which $200 was paid in cash, and the remainder of $3,000 was to be paid May 20, 1906; that Wightman would assign to the plaintiff the contract evidencing the purchase of his land by Clary as security for the purchase price of plaintiff’s stock of merchandise, estimated to be worth $2,800. The petition further alleges that Wightman represented the land to be worth $3,200; that it was level, and first-class soil; that it was not, in fact, worth to exceed $500; that the pretended sale to Clary was a fraud, and was drawn up and presented to
The case was tried and submitted to the jury upon the theory, first, that the land contract had been assigned to the plaintiff as security only for the payment of $2,800, the agreed value of plaintiff’s stock of merchandise; and, second, that the contract for the sale of the Logan county land to Clary was a pretense and a fraud; that the land was of little value, and the contract made, not for the purpose of evincing a bona -fide sale, but to be used in trading the plaintiff out of his stock of goods. The evidence contained in the bill of exceptions is amply sufficient to support the findings of the jury upon either theory. The land is apparently of little value. Clary, the vendee in the contract of sale, was not a witness in the case, but the inference arising from the evidence is that he is a man of little or no financial means, a renter of the agent of the defendant who sold him the land or who procured him to sign the contract of sale. He never saw the land, and apparently had no knowledge of its quality or value, and, according to the evidence of the agent who made the sale, was purchasing for his father, who at the time resided in Colorado or Oklahoma. We cannot believe that a party purchasing either for himself
The circumstances all go to support the plaintiff’s theory of the case, and the verdict of the jury has ample support in the evidence contained in the bill of exceptions. We recommend an affirmance of the judgment.
By the Court: For the reasons stated in the foregoing opinion, the judgment of the district court is
Affirmed.