Case ID: wis_127/html/0605-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Dodge, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Post and another, Respondents, vs. Roberts, Appellant.
    
      February 27
    
    March 20, 1906.
    
    
      !Appeal and error: Bill of exceptions: Evidence not included therein: Presumptions: Fraudulent representations: Findings.
    
    1. Evidence, consisting of maps referred to in the testimony as present on the trial, not brought before the supreme court in the bill of exceptions, will be presumed to have supported the findings made by the trial court.
    2. In an action to set aside a land contract for misrepresentations as to the quantity of clay loam and of cultivated land, on the evidence, stated in the opinion, the representations are held to be both material and adequately proved.
    Appeal from a judgment of the circuit court for La Crosse county: J. J". Eruit, Circuit Judge.
    
      Affirmed.
    
    The complaint alleges and the court found that plaintiffs were induced to buy defendant’s farm by reason of the latter’s misrepresentation that the same contained 147 acres, of which ninety-one acres were under plow and cultivation and sixty acres thereof were clay loam, whereas the farm in fact contained only 127 acres, of which only seventy-eight acres were under cultivation and about forty acres were clay loam, on which representations plaintiffs relied, entered into a land contract for the farm, and paid $1,000 down. Judgment was entered canceling said contract and adjudging defendant’s liability for the $1,000 paid, together with interest from the date of its payment, from which judgment defendant appeals.
    
      O. L. Hood, for the appellant.
    
      George H. Gordon, for the respondents.
   Dodge, J.

A careful examination of the evidence fails to disclose any clear preponderance against the material findings of fact. Indeed, the only serious question is as to whether plaintiffs were so informed of the deficiency in the quantity of the land before purchasing that they cannot be deemed to have relied upon defendant’s statement in that'respect. On this, however, there is considerable conflict of evidence, and certain maps referred to therein present upon the trial below are not brought here in the bill of exceptions. Such maps may have served to strongly support the findings and, in their absence, such must be presumed to have been their effect. If they tended to the contrary, appellant should have incorporated them in the bill of exceptions. Independently of this subject, however, the misrepresentations as to the quantity of clay loam and of cultivated lands are both material and are adequately proved.

By the Court. — Judgment affirmed.