Hackleman

Action to recover damages for alleged fraudulent representations made by defendant to plaintiff, as a result of which the latter, in reliance thereon, was induced to purchase certain land.

Judgment was rendered in favor of plaintiff for $450 and costs, from which the defendant has appealed.

It appears that defendant was the owner of forty acres of unimproved land situated in Imperial Valley. The land was rough, and had never been ditched, leveled, bordered, or otherwise prepared for irrigation, without which it could not be cropped or cultivated. Negotiations were entered into between plaintiff and defendant which culminated in a purchase of the tract of land by plaintiff. As alleged in the complaint, the court found that for the purpose of inducing plaintiff to purchase the land, defendant during the negotiations, and “on or about the fifteenth day of May, 1916, and at various other times between that date and the twenty-eighth day of June, 1916, represented and stated to the plaintiff that the above-described land had had water over it and that about twenty-five acres of said land was irrigable and could be put into a crop immediately after suitable ditches had been…