Court Opinion

ID: 8123611
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-09 15:03:15.128229+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:39:07.413412
License: Public Domain

McCrary, J.
The plaintiff now seeks, by bis new averments and the agreed statement, to put his case upon the ground of fraud. It is not pretended that there was any fraudulent intent on the part of the defendants. That they, in fact, acted in perfect good faith, intending to bind the county, and believing they had power to do so, is not questioned. How, then, does the plaintiff attempt to make a case-of fraud? They say the defendants are conclusively presumed to have known the law of Iowa, and therefore must be held to have offered the reward knowing that the county would not be bound. They must, therefore, have intended to mislead and deceive the plaintiff. Now it is manifest that this reasoning is purely technical. It aims to charge the defendants upon a case of fraud in law when there was no fraud in fact. It would be a strange result in an action at law to make a defendant responsible upon a charge of fraud while admitting that he, in fact, acted in perfect good faith.
It is, of course, necessary to this argument for the plaintiff to assume that he did not know the law of Iowa, because if he did know the law he was not deceived. But in my opinion this is untenable. When a party in one state makes a contract with direct reference to the law of another state, I think he must be held to know the law of that state. In all the county bond cases it was held by the supreme, court that the non-resident holder for value without notice, of county bonds, must take notice of the law of the state conferring the power to execute them, and that if the law of the state conferred no power the innocent purchaser and holder couid not recover. He was bound to know the law of the state under which the contract was made. He could‘not be innocent by reason of his ignorance in that regard. It never entered the mind of any one to say that, being a citizen of *57another state, he was not presumed to know the law of the state giving the authority to issue the bonds; and no one ever dreamed that the county officers, if they acted ultra vires, bound themselves personally. Why, then, was not the plaintiff in the present case bound to take notice of the law of Iowa conferring power upon the hoard of supervisors to offer the reward ? The plaintiff saw, by the very terms of the offer, that the board intended to hind the county and not to make themselves personally liable. Why was he not hound to take notice of the law of Iowa, and see whether or not it gave the hoard power to make the contract upon which he sues ?
If the defendants in this case can bo made responsible for fraud, upon the theory that they knew the law while the plaintiff was ignorant of it, I can see no reason why the county officers who may issue bonds in perfect good faith under a mistake of the law may not be made personally responsible upon them by any non-resident purchaser for value.
The plaintiff made a contract with the county of Marion, not with the defendants as individuals. He did service to the county, not to the defendants individually. And now, finding he cannot recover from the county, seeks to change the whole nature of the transaction. He seeks to make parties liable with whom he had no contract, and for whom he performed no service.
Upon a careful reconsideration of the whole case by both judges we are prepared to reaffirm what was said in the original opinion, and to hold that there is nothing in the amended petition upon which to base a claim for damages in favor of the plaintiff and against the defendants.
The demurrer to the amended petition is therefore sustained, both judges concurring.