Keller v. Crombie

Headnote

Keller v. Crombie, 159 App. Div. 901 , affirmed.

Appeal from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the first judicial department, entered November 11, 1918, affirming a judgment in favor of defendant entered upon a verdict.

The complaint is upon nine promissory notes aggregating $4,200 alleged to have been made by the defendant, payable to the order of Anglo-American Bibliophile Society, a domestic corporation, and by it indorsed and delivered for value before maturity to the plaintiff.' The answer denies all the material allegations of the complaint, alleges that plaintiff is barred from recov

cry because he is doing business in a name forbidden by the Partnership and Penal Laws of New York, and contains a counterclaim sounding in fraud, alleging that one Scott “acting for and on behalf of the plaintiff” sold books to defendant consisting of a set of Shakespeare, an edition of the works of Abraham Lincoln, the Life of Napoleon and a set of Victor Hugo, for which she paid the sum of $19,875, upon false representations, by Scott, that the books belonged to Charles W. Morse, who was then in jail and had to sell them to raise money, that they were hand tooled, were very rare and of great value and were reasonably worth $48,000, and that if she bought them a man on the Pacific coast would take them off her hands at a liberal profit; that Scott further induced defendant to buy a set of the writings of Theodore Roosevelt for $10,000, by falsely representing that the Pacific coast buyer would not take those already bought by her unless the writings of the ex-president were included; and finally, that Scott sold her a set of Mark Twain at the price of $5,200, upon the false representation that the Pacific coast buyer must have them in ‘his purchase with the rest or would take none; that for this latter set of Twain she paid $500 in cash, and gave ten notes for $4,700 to the order of the Anglo-American Bibliophile Society, one of which for $500 she paid, and the others, amounting to $4,200, are those set forth in the complaint; and upon allegations that plaintiff took the notes with knowledge of the fraud of Scott, judgment was demanded dismissing the complaint, and for the sum of $31,875, and that the notes set forth in the complaint be surrendered for cancellation.