Sacramento Suburban Fruit Lands Co. v. Perra
Sacramento Suburban Fruit Lands Co. v. Perra
Opinion of the Court
This is another of the Sacramento Suburban Fruit Lands cases.
Upon the latter question the court instructed the jury, as follows: “And then the representation that the land is worth $375 an acre in value. In connection with that you must remember this, a seller can fix any price on what he wants to sell and commit no wrong; it may be worth only a dollar, and yet he may ask ten dollars as the price, and if he sells it for that there is no falsehood and no fraud in that; but when he comes to say that it is a value of a certain amount, that is a different thing. If he falsely represents the value under circumstances which make it a material consideration, and it is in this case a material consideration, and representation, if it is not of that value that is fraud.” .
Again: “If they got full value for their money, no matter what false representations were made, they are not damaged. That comes right back again to the value of what they got. If the land was worth $375 an acre, that ends the case. No matter what the representations were they are not entitled to recover, because they got full value. If they got less than that they would be entitled to recover the difference. The defendant does not lose anything, it just gives back what it unjustly took, if it got it by false representations, as I have stated.”
It will thus be seen that the court instructed the jury that the representation as to value, standing alone, was actionable, if false, notwithstanding the appellees inspected the land and looked over other lands in the vicinity for a period of about a week before making the purchase and had full opportunity to investigate for themselves. It may be conceded that under some circumstances •a representation as to value is actionable, if false, but the rule is general, if not universal, that- such a misrepresentation, standing aloné, is not actionable under the facts disclosed by the present record. Lehigh Zinc & Iron Co. v. Bamford, 150 U. S. 665, 14 S. Ct. 219, 37 L. Ed. 1215; Vulcan Metals Co. v. Simmons Mfg. Co. (C. C. A.) 248 F. 853; 26 Corpus Juris, 1215.
Other rulings complained of have been sufficiently considered in the different cases this day decided.
The judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded for a new trial.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- SACRAMENTO SUBURBAN FRUIT LANDS CO. v. PERRA
- Status
- Published