Case ID: ny-st-rep_33/html/0928-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Daly, Ch. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

G. Waldo Smith et al., Resp’ts, v. Philip Bernhardt, App’lt.
    
      (New York Common Pleas,
    
    
      General Term,
    
    
      Filed November 14, 1890.)
    
    False bepbesentations—Pleading.
    A complaint alleging that defendant was the agent and manager of his life’s business, and to induce plaintiffs to sell toiler cn credit procured licito fill out a statement upon information given by him and which he knew to he false, and forwarded the same to plaintiff, who on the strength thereof sold the goods, states facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action against defendant for false representations. The defendant, under the circumstances, was not an agent, but a principal.
    Appeal from an order overruling demurrer to amended complaint, and from the judgment following said order.
    This was an action for the recovery of damages arising from false representations.
    The facts, as shown by the complaint, were, that the business was in the wife’s name, the defendant was the manager, general agent, and knew all about her affairs, her assets and liabilities, and with such knowledge applied to plaintiffs for a sale on credit. Plaintiffs demanded the usual statement and sent a blank form to the wife’s place of business; it was received by defendant and, by his procurement, filled out by his wife, upon information given by him, and. under his direction signed by her, delivered to him, and by him forwarded to plaintiffs. Upon the strength of this contrivance the goods were sold and delivered by the plaintiffs, who relied upon the statement thus procured. Representations contained in it were false to defendant’s knowledge, and plaintiffs have lost their claim.
    
      J. H. Hildreth, for app’lt; Jas. A. Seaman, for resp’ts.
   Daly, Ch. J.

The complaint is sufficient in alleging a false representation made by the defendant with knowledge of its falsity, and the injury to the plaintiffs resulting from the insolvency at the time of the party concerning whom the representation was made, it having been made by the defendant to induce the plaintiff to give that party credit. The defendant .is not an agent, but a principal, because he directly sent to the plaintiffs the written false representation to induce them to make the sale which they afterwards did. He made the false statement with full knowledge of the actual condition of his wife’s business. So, if she were insolvent at the time, he must have known the fact, because it is charged in the complaint that he was managing her business. °

Judgment affirmed.

Bischoff and Pryor, JJ., concur.