Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/270

 244 OCTOBER TERM, 1907. Olon of the our. 0 U. 8. conferences or written commucations, either personally or by attorney, or by others, with the president and fnt vice- president of the Southern 17ilway Company, for the purple of verifying the said statements and representations so made by the plaintiff as to any agreement existing hetween the defendant and Southern Railway Company in regard to the construction of the said branch railroad, and ascertained from the said officers of the said Railway Company, from time to time during said negotiations and before September 15, 1902, the date upon which it is alleged in the declaration that said purchaser was. found, that no agreement existed between the defendant and said Southern Railway Company to build said branch railroad, but that the subject of building such branch railroad had only been disenssed, and that the building thereof depended on the development and improvements to be placed on said land prior to the construction of any railroad, in the way of opening coal mines, establishing coke ovens, or furnish- ing the railroad with a sufficient amount of tonnage, and that sai d plaintiff and alleged purchaser had full knowledge and in- formation from the proper officers of the Southern Railway Company of all the facts relating to the conditions upon which said' branch railroad would be constructed and of the non- existence of any agreement between the defendant and South- ern Railway as alleged, then the defendant is not responsible for the non-appearance of the alleged sale or purchase of the land between the plaintiff and the alleged purchaser, and you should find for the defendant." As to this request we must repeat that it does not matter how much or how little the purchaser relied upon the defend- ant's representations if the plaintiff relied upon them and obtained a purchaser ready and abl e to purchase upon the basis that the defendant's representations to the plaintiff were true. That the plaintiff did rely upon them until the time when, on August 25, he announced Easter's readiness to purchase, hardly is open to dispute. But the judge told the jury that if the plain- tiff. at the beginning had made in(luiries of the railroad and

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