Richards v. Fraser

BRITT, C. Among other allegations of the complaint here plaintiff charges, in substance, that in December, 1891, himself and the defendants, Eraser, Rosenbaum and Guernsey, formed a copartnership for the purpose of buying and farming a tract of three thousand acres of land, called the Sargent tract, the parties to share' equally in profits and losses; that by a conspiracy between defendants and the seller the real purchase price of the land—forty dollars an acre—was concealed from plaintiff, and he was fraudulently induced to contribute and did contribute to the purchase of the same at the rate of above seventy-five dollars an acre; that defendants and the said seller of the property shared among themselves the excess thus oh[458]tained from plaintiff by fraud: that plaintiff paid Ms share of the fraudulent price in the manner following: the sum of sixty-two hundred and fifty dollars at the time of the formation of the partnership, and the balance of fifty-six thousand dollars by his note made to defendant Rosenbaum in August, 1893, secured by mortgage on various lands of plaintiff, including seven hundred and fifty acres of the said Sargent tract which had been previously set over to him in severalty upon a division of the tract among the alleged partners; that subsequently plaintiff satisfied said note and mortgage by the conveyance to Rosenbaum of property which the latter accepted in payment thereof; that defendants knowingly kept false accounts of the business of said partnership; that they omitted therefrom certain considerable credits to which plaintiff was entitled and rendered to him false statements of said accounts, and fraudulently misrepresented to him the amounts received and expended in the partnership business; that the concern is largely indebted to plaintiff, and that no complete accounting of its business has ever been had.

It is further alleged that on September 11, 1894, at the request of defendants, plaintiff executed to them an instrument of writing, in form a release of all demands “upon, or by reason of, any matter" cause, or thing, from the beginning of the world” to the date last mentioned; that defendants “then and there” falsely, and for the purpose of inducing plaintiff to sign said instrument, and of defrauding him, represented that nothing was owing to him from them or from said copartnership; that Rosenbaum threatened to foreclose the mortgage by which said note for fifty-six thousand dollars—then past due—was secured, unless plaintiff signed said release; that plaintiff was then ignorant of the aforesaid frauds perpetrated by defendants; that under the circumstances thus alleged he signed said release, and that subsequently to the execution thereof he discovered the frauds charged. The prayer of the complaint is for an accounting, et cetera. The action was begun August 1, 1896.