Case ID: how-pr_16/html/0140-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Justice Ingraham,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

SUPREME COURT.
    Herman Korff agt. Andrew H. Green, Albert Gilbert, The Commissioners of Common Schools, The Trustees of the Common Schools of the Fourth Ward, John Moore, James Farley and Henry McKillopp, and the Mayor, &c.
    
      New-York Special Term,
    
    
      June, 1858,
    Plaintiff in this case is. a resident freeholder and a tax payer in this city, and brings this suit in his own behalf and in behalf of other, tax payers. He shows in his complaint, that on the 15.fh of March, 1857, the trustees of the common schools in the fourth ward, agreed with the defendants Moore, Earley and McKillopp, to purchase certain premises belonging to the, latter, at Nos. 71, 73 and 75 Oliver street, for the purposes of a public school, at the price of $31,000 ; that the premises are not worth more than $2,0.000, and could at any time prior tq the agreement have been purchased at that sum; that Moore, Farley and McKillopp, fraudulently procured the agreement to h.e made by means of paying, ov agreeing to pay, to the trug; tees of the schools of that ward, or one or some of them, and to the Board of Education, or some or one of them, certain sums of money, amounting to $2,20.0, and that the latter procured the contract to be made, knowing the price to be excessive and far above the actual value of the premises. Plaintiff asked an injunction to restrain the sale and the payment of any money thereon.
    The defendant Moore, in answer says, he is owner of the premises No. 75 Oliver street, and has sold it to the corporation for $10,000 ; that he was not acting in concert or individually with the defendants McKillopp and Farley, for the purpose of fraudulently procuring the purchase of the premises. He denies the charge of bribing members of the Board of Education or of the ward trustees.
    
      The answer of the mayor, &d., denied any information as'to the alleged fraud, and submitted their rights to the court.
    P. Y. Cutler, for plaintiff.
    
    A. R. Lawrence, Jr., for mayor, &c.
    
    Beebe, Dean & Donohue, for the other defendants.
    
   Justice Ingraham,

dismissed the complaint on the ground that by a recent decision of the general term of this court, a tax payer could not obtain an injunction for any damage which, was common to all the tax payers in the city, and that the complaint in such a case must be filed in the name of the attorney-general of the state.

The decision referred to, is given in the opinion of Judge Balcom in regard to the sale of the Fort Cansevoort property. (Ante, pp. 138, 139.)