Lattin

In June, 1886, the plaintiff employed the defendants, who were engaged at Los Angeles in the business of searching public records and examining titles to real estate, to examine the title of one Birnbaum to a tract of land in Los Angeles County, for which he had made a contract of purchase, and ascertain if his title was good, and paid them one thousand dollars for their services. The defendants, under said employment therein, made a report to the plaintiff, and gave him a certificate in writing, on the twelfth day of June, 1886, that the title to the land was vested in Birnbaum, free of all encumbrances. Thereupon the plaintiff purchased and paid for the land. Afterwards, and within two years prior to the commencement of this action, a suit was brought in the superior court of Los Angeles County in reference to the title to said land, which the plaintiff was subjected to the cost and expense of defending, and in which a judgment was rendered, to the effect that at the date of said certificate an undivided one half of said land was vested in the heirs of one Smith; and the plaintiff herein was thereupon deprived of the said half of the land. In May, 1890, he commenced this action…