Cline v. Nelson

168 S.E. 70, 46 Ga. App. 600, 1933 Ga. App. LEXIS 147
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedFebruary 24, 1933
Docket22478
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 168 S.E. 70 (Cline v. Nelson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cline v. Nelson, 168 S.E. 70, 46 Ga. App. 600, 1933 Ga. App. LEXIS 147 (Ga. Ct. App. 1933).

Opinion

MacIntyre, J.

R. L. Nelson sued H. T. Cline for $8,500 damages, alleged to be the result of Cline’s fraudulently inducing plaintiff to part with his title to certain land. The jury trying the case returned a verdict for $1,000. The questions presented by the record are: (1) whether the trial judge erred in overruling general and special demurrers to the petition, and (2) whether the overruling of defendant’s motion for a new trial, based solely upon the usual general grounds, was error. The substance of the petition follows:

[601]*601Defendant has damaged petitioner in the sum of $8,500 by reason of the following facts:

On March 15, 1929, defendant “ solicited plaintiff for the purchase” of plaintiff’s four-hundred-aere tract of land known as the Sandford Place, representing that if plaintiff would sell said place “to the defendant,” it, together with defendant’s small adjoining place, could be sold by the defendant to a “North Georgia purchaser” for a large dairy farm. Plaintiff told defendant that if these representations were true, he, plaintiff, “would be very reasonable in his price, . . so that defendant could sell his place and this large dairy enterprise could be located there.” Thereupon Cline asked plaintiff to “give him an option on said Sandford Place,” and plaintiff, believing that said representations of Cline were true and that “the option was necessary to help defendant conclude the sale of defendant’s place and bring said large dairy enterprise to this locality, . . did sign said option to said Sand-ford Place,” the same being described in a designated deed record of. Baldwin county. Having heard “rumors of a power-development project to be constructed on the Oconee river, . . in said negotiations” plaintiff asked said Cline if “the purchase of the Sandford Place was for the power company development, and Cline said, “No, I swear it is not for the power company.” Having no definite “information as to the said development project,” and being occupied with his grocery business in Milledgeville, and said Cline “being postmaster and spending a great deal of his time on the streets picking up information here and there, and being generally known to be familiar with the affairs and business and goings-on of Baldwin county, and plaintiff having had previous real-estate dealings with said Cline, and the said Cline having always appeared friendly to plaintiff and knowingly encouraged the confidence of plaintiff in him, plaintiff did not suspect the representations and statements of said Cline to be untrue, and thereupon concluded said sale of said Sandford Place. . .”

“On or about June 12, 1929, to-his surprise,” plaintiff learned that said representations of Cline were “false and fraudulent, and that the purchase of said Sandford Place was not for a dairy enterprise at all, but that the same had been purchased for the Georgia Power Company for its development project,” and also that “said Cline had boastingly made statements that he . . had made $5,000 off of the plaintiff in said transaction.”

[602]*602“Thereupon . . plaintiff” asked Cline why he had “made said false and fraudulent representations, and why he had lied” about buying plaintiff’s land for a dairy; and defendant only laughed.

“In said negotiations, and as a part of the consideration thereof,” plaintiff told Cline that he, plaintiff, “had expended in improvements on said Sandford Place in the form of wire and the construction of a barn about $1,000,” and that Cline “stated to him that these improvements could be removed by plaintiff. However, after the sale had been concluded, . . said Cline told him he could not do so.”

“Said representations and statements made by said Cline in negotiating for the purchase of said Sandford Place were false and fraudulent,” and Cline “knew that the same were false and fraudulent. They were made for the purpose of inducing plaintiff . . to enter into said transaction and sell said land for the purpose of deceiving plaintiff. They did induce him to enter into said transaction and sell said land, and did deceive him therein,” and plaintiff was damaged as alleged.

“Plaintiff would not have entered into said transaction with said . . Cline, and would not have sold said Sandford Place to him for . . $2500, . . . had he not been deceived and misled by the said . . Cline by the said false and fraudulent representations, and had he not been induced thereby to sell said land.

“Said tract of land was worth $25 per acre, or $10,000. . . Georgia Power Company was purchasing land, and did purchase land of a similar character . . at $25 per acre,” and in some instances at $50 per acre. Said improvements on said Sandford Place were worth $1,000, said improvements being a three-strand wire fence around 300 acres of land and a large barn forty by sixty feet.

On account of “said fraud and false and fraudulent representations of . . said Cline, plaintiff has been damaged by the said Cline in the sum of $8,500.”

. That part of the general -demurrer to the petition insisted upon by plaintiff in error is substantially as follows: (1) The petition sets out no cause of action. (2) “The petition fails to allege the date and the material provisions of said option, and no copy of same is attached to the petition, or incorporated therein.” (3) Plaintiff [603]*603fails to allege that when he parted with the title to his land he conveyed it to defendant, or to any other person or corporation having or claiming any rights under said option. Nor is it charged that that plaintiff “was induced, compelled, or procured” to convey said land by any “ false statements made to him by defendant at the time the option was executed, or because of the execution of the option itself; nor even that at the time he conveyed his land he was deceived or misled in any manner by defendant.” (4) The petition fails to state the name of the person in whose favor the option was originally executed, fails to allege “the name of the person in whose favor a deed was finally executed, fails to allege that the person or corporation to whom, or to which, a conveyance of the land was executed was a holder of said option or claimed any rights under it at the time of the conveyance.”

We shall next indicate by paragraph the substance of the special demurrer to the petition. It is as follows: (1) “The petition fails to allege the date and the material terms and provisions of said option, and no copy of the same is attached to the petition or incorporated therein.” (2) This paragraph is in the precise language of paragraph 3 of the general demurrer. (3) This paragraph is the same as paragraph 4 of the general demurrer. (4) This paragraph is abandoned. (5) “The description of the land given in paragraph 2 of the petition is insufficient in law.” (6) The following words in paragraph 2 of the petition are “immaterial and irrelevant,” and should be stricken: “and the said Hugh T.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Goldman v. Hart
214 S.E.2d 670 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1975)
Blanchard v. West
156 S.E.2d 164 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1967)
Williams v. Williams
143 S.E.2d 443 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1965)
Williams v. Dougherty County
113 S.E.2d 168 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1960)
Ritzert v. Bulloch County
112 S.E.2d 235 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1959)
Watkins v. Mertz
62 S.E.2d 744 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1950)
Fite v. McEntyre
49 S.E.2d 159 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1948)
Stovall v. Rumble
29 S.E.2d 804 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1944)
Aycock v. Williams
196 S.E. 54 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1938)
Villa Rica Manufacturing Co. v. General American Life Insurance
190 S.E. 49 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1937)
Corbin v. Shadburn
174 S.E. 259 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1934)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
168 S.E. 70, 46 Ga. App. 600, 1933 Ga. App. LEXIS 147, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cline-v-nelson-gactapp-1933.