Jaffe v. Weld — 208 N.Y. 593

Majority

p. 593

Max Jaffe et al., Appellants, v. Stephen M. Weld et al., Respondents.

Headnote

Jaffe. v. Weld, 155 App. Div. 110 , affirmed.

(Argued April 15, 1913;

decided April 29, 1913.)

Appeal, by permission, from an order of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the first judicial department, entered February 7, 1913, which affirmed an order of Special Term denying plaintiffs’ motion for judgment on the pleadings and sustaining demurrers to the complaint in an action to impress a trust upon certain merchandise.

The following question was certified: “Does the complaint state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action ? ”

George T. Hogg and Antonio Knauth for appellants.

Edward H. Blanc, Edward R. Greene and Rudolph L. von Bernuth for respondents.

Order affirmed, with costs, and question certified answered in the negative. There can be no doubt of the rule that funds obtained by fraud may be followed through however many transmutations of form they may have passed so long as the rights of a third party for value and in good faith do not intervene; but this complaint, though prolix to a degree not easy to characterize, is so replete with hypothetical and alternative allegations that it is not possible on any reasonable interpretation to spell out any direct allegation that the

p. 594

money obtained from these plaintiffs did in fact pass into the cotton upon which it is sought to impress a trust; no opinion.

Concur: Cullen, Ch. J., Gray, Werner,' Hiscock, Collin and Cuddeback, JJ.; Miller, J., takes no part.