Petersen v. East River Land Co.

Headnote

Petersen v. East River Land Co., 172 App. Div. 925 , affirmed.

Appeal from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the second judicial department, entered January 21, 1916, unanimously affirming a judgment in favor of plaintiff entered upon a decision of the court on trial at Special Term in an action to impress and foreclose a vendee’s lien against certain real property. Christian Petersen sued the East River Land Company and the Rickert-Finlay Realty Company, alleging that the Rickert-Finlay Realty Company was engaged in certain real estáte developments, among them one known as the “ East River Heights; ” that the East River Land Company was practically the Rickert-Finlay Realty Company; that by reason of certain promises and representations by the Rickert-Finlay Realty Company, upon which he relied, he was induced to enter into a contract with the East River Land Company for the purchase of a lot; that certain of these representations - had been embodied in a covenant and made a part of the contract of sale; that he performed the contract' on his part; that the contract had not been carried out by defendants in that two material matters, namely, the. laying of sewers and the macadamizing of the street had not been done within a reasonable time; that the East River Land Company had ceased to be a going concern in 1911. The answer.of the East River Land Company denied the material allegations, and set .up a separate defense

that the plaintiff refused to- perform. ' The answer of the Rickert-Finlay Realty Company was practically the same, except that it expressly alleged that it entered into a contract with, the plaintiff, and set out the contract.