Mox Incorporated v. Woods

[676]

PRESTON, J.

This is an appeal by plaintiff corporation from judgment dismissing from the action certain defendants, following order sustaining general demurrers separately interposed by them, plaintiff having declined to amend. The defendants who had judgment are Frank E. Woods and Nancy E. Woods, husband and wife, and Bank of America, a corporation.

The complaint attempts, and we think successfully, to plead damages as the result of a civil conspiracy, to wit, a conspiracy to inflict damages by wrongful acts. We are not concerned with the question of the ability of the plaintiff to prove the allegations of the complaint, and this would be true even though we could foresee insuperable difficulties in making such proof. We are merely to pass upon the sufficiency of the complaint as a pleading.

The conspiracy charged and the damages alleged may be set forth briefly as follows: Defendants Woods and wife were the owners in 1923 of some 1,540 acres of desert lands in San Bernardino County of a market value not to exceed $17,000. Intending to create a false and fictitious value therefor and to thereby cheat and defraud the public in the sale and disposition of these lands in small tracts, a scheme or joint venture of all defendants was planned whereby they were to receive all the proceeds from such venture and yet not be responsible for any of the losses or liabilities that would surely occur on the eventual dissipation of the real estate bubble. Accordingly the properties were ;named as the Len-wood Estates. Defendant William Barnard, a man known to all the other defendants to be insolvent, was selected as the manager of said Lenwood Estates, although he was to and did operate under the name of Arizona-California Land Company, a corporation, said company being his

alter ego.

A secret trust agreement was entered into among the defendants by which the lands were to be deeded to defendant Bank of America as trustee, and defendants Woods and wife, former owners of the property, were to be free from liability of any kind in connection with the scheme. Said lands were to be subdivided and prices were fixed for the sale of the various small tracts, which said prices would in the aggregate amount to some $200,000 or more for the entire tract. The whole scheme was from its inception one to cheat and defraud, as