Court Opinion

ID: 3627895
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2016-07-06 00:08:05.913763+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:44:50.410179
License: Public Domain

[EDITORS' NOTE:  THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] *Page 195 
The Supreme Court as well as the referee seem to have overlooked the fact that when, on the 4th day of March, 1854, the contract was made by which Wadhams agreed to cause the several lots embraced in it to be conveyed to Bartow, that Bartow knew that only one of the five lots was owned by Wadhams, and that the only title he had to lot No. 7 rested in a contract with McPhierson, upon which there was unpaid $2,675, which, when paid, entitled Wadhams, or such person as he might appoint, to a sufficient deed of conveyance of that lot. From the fourth to the tenth of January, some six days, the contract between Wadhams and the defendant Bartow remained executory; then, to end it, or, as the defendant states it, "in consummation" of it, he received a deed from Edwin Wadhams for one of the lots, from Collins for another, from Jonathan Wadhams for two others; and upon securing to be paid some $2,500 of the purchase *Page 197 
price of lot 7, and assuming to pay $2,675, the amount which remained unpaid upon it from the Messrs. Wadhams to McPhierson, they assigned to him McPhierson's covenant, to convey to him that lot upon being paid the balance unpaid upon it, and thus, according to his own version of the transaction, an end was put to the contract of the fourth. It is sometimes a question necessary to be referred to and passed upon by a jury or referee, whether the receipt by an obligee of the covenant of a third party to do what has been agreed to be done by the obligor is intended by the parties as a substitute for and in discharge of the covenant of the original obligor; but where it is clearly understood; as in this case, that the object of the one in assigning and of the other in receiving is to put an end to the original obligation, its effect becomes the only question for consideration. The parties having terminated the contract of the fourth of January, by the defendant's receiving, in consummation of it, a deed from each of the owners of the respective lots owned by them, which, by that contract, Wadhams was to cause to be conveyed to him, and the assignment of a covenant of a third party to convey the remaining part, must look to the substituted covenant for the redress of any grievance he has sustained by reason of the failure of the title conveyed or covenanted to be conveyed to him.
It was claimed on the argument that the assignment of the McPhierson contract, containing his covenant to give a sufficient deed, implied a warranty on the part of the assignors that McPhierson had a good title and a right to convey the land. It implied a warranty that the assignors owned the contract assigned by them, and that the signatures to the contract were genuine, but not that the land embraced in it was the property of McPhierson. The assignment "of the land thereby conveyed" was at most but a quitclaim of the title of Wadhams to the land described therein; in which, by statute, no warranty of title could be implied. (3 R.S., 5th ed., 29, 30, § 160.) It was also insisted that, irrespective of any covenant, that where a purchaser supposes he has purchased *Page 198 
a good title and pays for it, and it turns out that the grantor had no title, the purchaser may recover back the purchase-money, on the ground of a mistake of fact. This he may do if both parties are mistaken, and not otherwise. (Martin v.McCormick, 8 N.Y., 331, 335.) Unless the mistake is mutual, if there be no ingredient of fraud, the party is remitted to his covenants. (2 Kent's Com., 11th ed., 622, marg. 473.) There is neither allegation nor proof of mutual mistake, nor of any fraud on the part of the assignors of McPhierson's covenants; and hence, without considering any other question submitted on the part of the appellant, I am of opinion that the judgment of the Supreme Court should be reversed, and that entered upon the report of the referee should be affirmed.