Langley

Rodriguez, the defendant here, and the Cutting Fruit Packing Company, a corporation, the latter acting by one Bates, its agent, made and signed a contract in writing, of date July 6, 1896, by the terms whereof Rodriguez agreed to sell to said packing company his crop of raisin grapes, then growing, and said company agreed to pay him at the rate of two cents *581 per pound for the same when delivered "in sweat boxes” at its packing-house. This is an action by the assignee of the .packing company to recover damages for defendant’s refusal to deliver the goods pursuant to said written agreement.

In his answer defendant pleaded, in substance, that his signature to said instrument was procured by fraud of said Bates, ■consisting in this: To induce defendant to sign the paper, Bates orally promised and agreed, on behalf of the packing company, that when the grapes should be ready to gather, said company would advance to defendant on the said agreed price thereof the sum of three hundred and fifty dollars, to enable him to pick and cure the same; that without the prior promise of such advance defendant would not have signed said writing; that Bates, . when he made the said oral promise,…