Crislip v. Cain

Summary

The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia held that the chancery court had jurisdiction to decree on a rule against the purchaser for the purchase-money after the death of the sole plaintiff without reviving the original cause, because such proceedings are action 'beyond the cause'; that the purchaser's general exception to the commissioner's report was properly disregarded; and that the purchaser was entitled to no abatement for land within his deed boundaries that the vendor never held or showed him, while a special commissioner appointed by consent was not an arbitrator and his report could be set aside. Reviewing English and American authority at length, the court announced that a sale of an entire tract by boundaries for a lump sum is in gross, that mutual innocent mistake as to quantity never justifies abatement or an added price (equity's only remedy being rescission in toto), and that abatement requires legal fraud, such as a vendor's affirmation of quantity as of his own knowledge, or warranty. The supplied text ends before the court's final application of these principles to the 6.75-acre deficiency and its disposition of the appeal.