Cox v. Cameron Lumber Co.

Citations

• 39 Wash. 562
• 82 P. 116
• 1905 Wash. LEXIS 901

Syllabus

<p>Contracts—Legality—Cutting Timber on Public Lands—Public Policy—Notice op Title op Government—Caveat Emptor—Waiver op Objections—Pleadings—Objections First Raised in Supreme Court. A defendant who seripped government land, and entered into a contract expressly reciting that it owned the lands, whereby the plaintiffs were employed to cut the timber therefrom, cannot, for the first time in the supreme court, set up the title of the government and. the illegality of the contract as a defense to an action for breach of the contract, where the plaintiffs were not aware of defendant’s want of title; since it was not incumbent upon them to investigate the title under the doctrine of caveat emptor, and violation of the law not being contemplated, the contract was not void on the ground of public policy, to the extent of requiring a court on its own motion to so declare, where the parties had failed in their pleadings to allege the illegality.</p> <p>Contribution — Joint Wrong-Doers — Compromise op Prosecution—Legal Liability to Make Payment—Cutting Timber on Government Land. Where one employed to cut timber on lands supposed to belong to another is prosecuted for unlawfully cutting timber on government lands, and compromises the suit by the payment of $2.50 per acre, under the act of June 3, 1878, he cannot recover from his employer the amount so paid; since, if guilty, there can be no contribution among wrong-doers; and if not guilty, he was under no legal liability to make the payment in compromise of the prosecution.</p>