Greiling v. Watermolen

107 N.W. 339, 128 Wis. 440, 1906 Wisc. LEXIS 241
Wisconsin Supreme Court·Decided May 8, 1906·Published·Cited by 1 cases

Opinion

Cassoday, C. J.

1. Error is assigned because the trial •court held that the diagram made and used by the administrator at the public sale, as mentioned in the foregoing statement, falsely represented Catherine street to be sixty feet wide. It is conceded that the lots in question are situated in the southern tier of lots in McCole’s addition and abut on Catherine street on the south; that that addition is wholly on private claim Mo. 9; and that the recorded plat of McOole’s addition shows that the south line of said private claim Mo. 9 is twenty-four feet south of the south line of said lots, that said Catherine street is sixty feet wide, and that the south thirty-six feet thereof is in private claim Mo. 10. It seems that at the time' of the public sale the street and lots in question were all one common, and that, although the street was open, it was not graded or worked, and that by looking at the place it could not be told whether there was any street there or not. It is also con[445] ceded, that the McLean plat is wholly in private claim No. 10, and that the north line thereof abuts on the south line of Catherine street; hut it is contended on the part of the administrator that “there is nothing on the recorded McLean plat to-indicate but what the south line of Catherine street as shown on the McCole plat is the north boundary line of the McLean plat,” for the reason that the starting point as given in the certificate on the McLean plat is indefinite and uncertain as to-that point in reference to Catherine street. In other words, the claim is that there is nothing on that plat to indicate whether the north line thereof is the north line of private claim No. 10 or thirty-six feet south of that line. The certificate of the McLean plat shows that it

“is situated and laid out on all that part of private claim-No. 10 east side of Fox river, which is laying between the-continuation of Webster street of the city of Green Bay and' the continuation of Monroe avenue or the River Shore road leading from Green Bay to village of Depere. The lots in-said addition are marked and numbered, and the length and width of each lot, as also the course and distance, are expressed in figures as the plat sets forth. The starting point of survey is at the northwest eorner of lot 20 at Van Burén street, the line and direction of which is intended in all cases to- correspond with Van Burén street in the city of Green-Bay.”

In other words, the plat is bounded on the east by the continuation of Webster street and on the west by the continuation of Monroe avenue and is coextensive on the north and south with the width of private claim No. 10. Among the proposed written findings which the trial court was requested by the administrator to make, is one which reads as follows :•

“That Catherine street in question appears on the recorded McCole plat and also on diagram made and used by the administrator, to be a sixty-foot street, but that in fact it is-only twenty-four feet wide, being the twenty-four feet in private claim 9.”

[446] In the carefully written opinion of the trial judge it is •said, in effect, that the lots in the McLean plat “come clear to the north line of private claim 10 and the south line of private claim 9, leaving nothing for Catherine street” except the twenty-four feet mentioned; and that that fact could have been “ascertained by observing the fact that the north tier of lots in the McLean plat comes clear to the south line of private claim 9, and the lots fronting on Catherine street ■on the McOole plat come within twenty-four feet of the same line;” and that “a careful inspection of the McLean plat ■shows that the north tier of lots comes to the line between claims 9 and 10.” Such conclusions seem to be supported by the record. Certainly, we cannot say that the finding of the trial court, as to the false representations in regard to the width of Catherine street, is against the clear preponderance of the evidence.

2. It is claimed by the administrator that the lots purchased by Gr&iling were actually worth what he paid for them and hence that he had sustained no damage and therefore was not entitled to a rescission of the sale. The only evidence tending to show that the lots were worth what Greil-ing paid for them is that, some four months after he purchased, two adjoining lots of equal value were sold by the •administrator at private sale for $101.50 each. It appears and is manifest that they were worth considerably less by reason of fronting on a street only twenty-four feet wide than they would have been had they fronted on a street sixty feet wide, as was supposed by both parties at the time of the purchase. By the false representations mentioned Greiling was induced to make the purchase. He was entitled to a rescission by reason of such false representations, without proof of actual damage. This seems to be well settled by numerous adjudications in this court. Miner v. Medbury, 6 Wis. 295; Mecklem v. Blake, 22 Wis. 495; Booth v. Ryan, 31 Wis. 45; Risch v. Von Lillienthal, 34 Wis. 250; McKinnon v. Voll[447] mar, 75 Wis. 82, 43 N. W. 800; Bergeron v. Miles, 88 Wis. 397, 60 N. W. 783; Hansen v. Allen, 117 Wis. 61, 93 N. W. 805.

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Greiling v. Watermolen, 107 N.W. 339, 128 Wis. 440, 1906 Wisc. LEXIS 241 (Wis. 1906).

107 N.W. 339 (Greiling v. Watermolen) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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