v.
Theordore Ivens and T. J. Andre
The defendants Ivens, Andre, and Molan organized a company, of which the plaintiffs and others were members, for the purchase of about 15,000 acres of Minnesota land of the Boston & Duluth Farm Land Company. The parties interested in the purchase of the land, including Ivens and Andre, entered into a written contract with the land company, whereby' they agreed to take the land at' $18,138, 18,138 of which was to be, and was paid, when the contract was made, and the remainder of which was to be paid in five equal payments of $12,000 each, with interest. Ivens and Andre were acting for their associates in the purchase of this land, and closed the negotiations therefor and took charge of the written contract. At the same time, they each entered into a separate written agreement with the Boston & Duluth Land Company, whereby the land company agreed to pay each 50 cents per acre for their services in effecting a sale of the land to themselves and their associates. The land was paid for in full, and Ivens and Andre each received from the land company the amount agreed upon for their services. In 1908, more than five years after the contracts had been made, the plaintiffs brought this action to recover of Ivens, Andre, and Molan their proportionate share of the sum received by them for their services, alleging fraud and false representations on their part. The evidence is quite conclusive that the plaintiffs were induced to join the defendants and the others in the purchase of this land through the representations of the defendants that the agreed price [*19] of $5.25 per acre for the land was a low price, and the best price for which it could be obtained; that defendants were not to receive any commission or be otherwise compensated for their special work in connection with the transaction, but that all members of the association were to be on an equal footing and were to pay equal amounts; in other words, that all were to be in on the ground floor. As in many similar cases, however, there was a cellar still below the ground floor into which the defendants Ivens and Andre secretly entered, and drew from the floor above $14,884.43. It needs no argument or citation of authority to demonstrate that they thus perpetrated a fraud upon those of their associates who had no knowledge of the transaction.
tation provided by Code, section 3447, is not extended by section 3448. Whether the action be solely cognizable in equity is not a vital question here; for we find from the evidence that there was a fraudulent concealment of the facts, and that the case is thus brought within the rule of Boomer v. French, 40 Iowa, 601; Carrier v. Railway Co., 79 Iowa, 80; Faust v. Hosford, 119 Iowa, 97.
There is no merit in the appellants’ contention that the fraudulent act might have been sooner discovered by the use of diligence. The defendants were acting in a fiduciary relation to their associates, and their repeated assurances to these plaintiffs that they were not to receive any advantage over them in the purchase of the land justified the plaintiffs in relying thereon, even though they may have suspected a secret arrangement before such assurances were given. Furthermore, the record shows that the plaintiffs were not able to and did not learn the facts until their disclosure was forced by legal action after this suit was brought. These judgments are right, and they are affirmed.