Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 280, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 November 1919 — BRINGS SUIT FOR $15,000 [ARTICLE]

BRINGS SUIT FOR $15,000

RIO GRANDE VALLEY LAND CORPORATION MADE DEFENDANT IN BIG SUIT. A complaint, covering fifteen closely typewritten pages, has been filed in the Jasper county circuit court by Reave L. Johnson against the Rio Grande Valley Land corporation with principal offices at Kansas Johnson, the complaint alleges, has lived in Cherokee county, la., for twenty-five years and is sixtynine years of age. The land described in the complaint is locatdd in Hidalgo county, Texas.

The plaintiff claims that he was interested in the Texas land by his very good and supposedly reliable friend, one Lena Marply, who claimed to have purchased a tract of this Texas land in 1914 and which was very greatly increased in value. One F. L. Sherwood, who was the lowa state agent, and A. J. Mic Coll, who is the president of the corporation, induced Johnson to make a trip* to McAllen, Texas, with other prospective buyers. Johnson claims that the trip to Texas was made in a special train and that eight went from his neighborhood in lowa and that the number was increased to seventy-five at Kansas City. During this trip President MlcColl made several addresses in which he said that the land was all level, well irrigated, was worth S4OO per acre-and would produce three large crops annually and would rent for from $25 to SSO per year. When the promised land was reached the agents of the company, it is claimed, took charge of the party, assigning them by number to automobiles with two of the company’s agents in each machine. Johnson claims that he made the trip with the view of buying the Marply fifteen acres, but it was not located to suit him and under the influence of the ,agents of the land corporation he purchased 38.05 acres at S4OO per acre of them. After Johnson, so he alleges, had returned to his lowa home, Sherwood visited him and by false representations and fraud induced Johnson to buy another tract con-# sisting of 49.78 acres at S4OO and the 38.05 acres was taken in on the trade at the same price; that in making this exchange, Sherwood represented that this tract was all level land, well irrigated; that it would raise_ three crops per year, would rent for from $25 to SSO par and that much of it could be divided into town lots and sold at S6OO per Johnson alleges that twenty-three acres of this last tract could not be cultivated, is too high to be irrigated and that in the exchange Johnson claims to be damaged in the amount of $15,000, for which he brings suit. Johnson’s attorneys are Barker and Dean, of Marion, and it is understood that they will be assisted by George A. Williams, of this city. Attorney Moses Leopold is representing the land company. President A. J. McColl was here November 18 find was served With a writ by Sheriff Woodworth and notified to appear in the Jasper circuit court. / Much interest is manifested in the case as a number of people in this vicinity have made investments in this Texas land.