Court Opinion

ID: 9726433
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 12:48:46.351217+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:27.024597
License: Public Domain

V. J. Brennan, J.

(dissenting).

Defendant Roland Johnson was tried before the court sitting without a jury and convicted of obtaining money from one George Kattouah under false pretenses. MCLA §750.218 (Stat Ann 1962 Rev § 28.415). I reverse for a failure of proof of one of the elements of the crime.
On July 1, 1965, Benjamin and Sarah Latta engaged the defendant, a real estate agent doing business as the Roland Johnson Real Estate and Investment Co., to sell their home in Detroit, asking that the purchaser pay a fair price for their “equity” and assume both an $8,800 mortgage and $9,900 in unsecured home improvement loans. To facilitate the sale, the Lattas executed a deed to the defendant.* The defendant subsequently found a prospective purchaser, the complaining witness George Kattouah, and informed him of the $8,800 mortgage and the price asked for the “equity”. However, he represented the indebtedness to be assumed on the home improvement loans as being “approximately $5,500”, not the $9,900 actually due. Kattouah agreed in writing to purchase the house, paid $1,500 to the defendant and signed a writing in which he assumed a debt of “approximately $5,500” on the home improvement loans. The defendant in turn executed a warranty deed.
The statute defining the crime of obtaining money under false pretenses, MCLA § 750.218, has been *20authoritatively construed to require that the person from whom the money is obtained suffer a detriment as a result of the misrepresentation. In People v. Larco (1951), 331 Mich 420, 429, the Supreme Court said:
“To support a conviction of obtaining money under false pretenses it was incumbent on the people to establish by competent evidence and beyond a reasonable doubt that some one or more of the representations set forth in the information was or were made with reference to an existing fact or facts, that such representation or representations was or were false and made with knowledge of its or their falsity, with intent to deceive, and that the person sought to be deceived relied thereon to Ms detriment”. (Emphasis supplied.)
The prosecution in the instant case did not, however, offer proof of this element. Indeed, it appears, as the defendant has contended all along, that no detriment was in fact suffered by the complainant, Kattouah. While it is true that a misrepresentation of the amount of a debt secured by a lien on the property will sustain a conviction under the statute, People v. Lee (1932), 259 Mich 355; People v. Etzler (1940), 292 Mich 489, the debt on the home improvement loans here was not secured, and therefore the house is not subject to foreclosure for that part of the debt Kattouah did not assume, or, for that matter, the part Kattouah did assume. And, as far as we know, Kattouah’s title is unaffected by the misrepresentation, while Kattouah himself is exposed to no greater liability than that which he assumed.
To conclude, there is nothing on the record showing that the complainant received anything less than what he bargained for. In the absence of such a *21showing, the conviction should not stand. People v. Smith (1932), 260 Mich 486.
A new trial should not be ordered, since it does not appear that the failure of proof was due to inadvertence to which no objection or motion was made. People v. Baker (1969), 19 Mich App 480.
I would reverse.

 Mrs. Latta testified at trial that she neither read the papers put before her by the defendant nor understood the nature of the transaction.