Burrows

This is an appeal by the defendant Maupin from a judgment in favor of plaintiff.

The transaction giving rise to the litigation grew out of a plan of defendant William Durflinger, who was engaged in the business of building and selling residences, and whose procedure thereunder usually was to purchase a vacant lot, make an initial payment thereon, and borrow upon a first-mortgage money with which to erect a building upon the lot, giving to his vendor a trust deed to secure the balance of the purchase price, said trust deed being made subject to said mortgage. In the case at bar said defendant purchased a certain lot in the city of Los Angeles from the plaintiff Burrows for the sum of two thousand four hundred dollars, upon which he paid him in cash four hundred dollars and caused to be executed in his favor, as will hereafter appear, a trust deed to secure the balance, the plaintiff agreeing that a first mortgage for four thousand dollars might be placed upon the property. There was also a general oral understanding between Durflinger and the plaintiff that the former would build a residence upon the lot, without, however, its cost being specified or when it should be built.…