Townsend v. Hirshkind

Headnote

Townsend v. Hirshkind, 176 App. Div. 520 , affirmed.

Appeal from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the first judicial department, entered March 2, 1917, affirming a judgment in favor of plaintiffs entered upon a-verdict directed by the court-in an action upon a bond whereby defendant promised to pay to plaintiffs’ testatrix - the sum of five thousand dollars. The defense was that the signature of the bond was induced by fraudulent representations of the agent of the decedent, with which she was chargeable with the same effect as if she had made such fraudulent representations inducing said signature of the defendant herself. It was further alleged that said agent was' at the time defendant’s attorney and confidential adviser, and that said attorney induced him to sign three papers, one of which was the bond in suit, another a mortgage upon an interest in the estate of one Goldenberg, and the third a check for $5,000 drawn by said attorney to defendant’s order on the Corn Exchange Bank, all of which he signed relying on said attorney’s statements that they were documents connected with some transaction relating to property belonging to said attorney and by him carried in. the name of the defendant and

that they involved, the defendant in no personal liability to pay money, as the result of which he did not read the papers and did not know their contents or effect.