Hick

Defendant appeals from judgment and order refusing a new trial.

The action is to set aside a conveyance of real estate and a bill of sale for personal property, on the ground of fraud and duress.

The complaint shows that plaintiff is a widow upwards of sixty-eight years old, of feeble understanding and limited business experience, and at the time of the execution of the instruments, was living alone, remote from friends or relatives, in ill health, and in a state of great mental depression and despondency; that at the urgent solicitation of the defendant, she verbally contracted to sell to him her property, consisting of a tract of land and the stock on it, for three thousand five hundred dollars. After this verbal agreement was made, defendant, intending to cheat and defraud her, falsely represented, insisted, and asseverated that the verbal contract was not that he should pay $3,500 for all the property, but $1,000 for the land only; that he could prove such assertion, and compel her to perform the contract as he claimed it to be; that he had an unredeemed certificate of sale for taxes, and unless she sold to him, he would get a tax deed which would be as good or better than a…