Buffington v. Summit Branch Railroad Co.

• Decision Date: 02 July 1873
• Citation: 74 Pa. 162
• Parties: Buffington <I>et al. versus</I> Summit Branch Railroad Company <I>et al.</I>
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 162

74 Pa. 162

Buffington et al. versus Summit Branch Railroad Company et al.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

May 22, 1873.

July 2, 1873.

May 22d 1873.

Before READ, C. J., AGNEW, SHARSWOOD, WILLIAMS and MERCUR, JJ.

Error to the Court of Common Pleas of Dauphin county: No. 72, to May Term 1873.

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F. W. Hughes and Hamilton Alricks, for plaintiffs in error.— The order by the testator to sell this land was a conversion, and the descent was broken; there is no limitation of charges against personal estate of a decedent: Dundas's Appeal, 14 P. F. Smith 325; Brown's Appeal, 3 Casey 62. A sale under judgment against the personal representatives passes a good title: Leiper v. Castner, 10 P. F. Smith 177; Baldy v. Brady, 3 Harris 103; Willing v. Peters, 7 Barr 287.

J. W. Simonton, for defendants in error, cited Buehler v Buffington, supra; Miller & Bowman's Appeal, 10 P. F. Smith 407.

The opinion of the court was delivered, July 2d 1873, by SHARSWOOD, J.

A former ejectment for the same tract of land as that now in controversy was brought by writ of error before this court in 1862, and the title of the present plaintiffs was decided to be bad by a solemn adjudication and without a dissent: Buehler's Heirs v. Buffington, 7 Wright 278. The judgment of the Court of Common Pleas of Dauphin county was reversed, and a venire facias de novo awarded. When the cause had been remitted and was again ordered for trial in that court March 23d 1863, the plaintiffs suffered a nonsuit. The defendants then sold their interest to others, and it was finally vested in the Summit Branch Railroad Company. Six years after the nonsuit in the first ejectment, the present suit was commenced. The main question in that controversy, and the decision of which we are now asked to reconsider, arose upon the construction of the will of Daniel Williams. The determination cast no doubt whatever upon the principle so well settled in Alexander v. McMurry, 8 Watts 504, and other cases which have followed in its wake, that when executors are directed by will to sell land for the payment of debts, a trust is created, and the limitation of the lien of debts upon the land of a decedent under the Acts of Assembly has no application. On the contrary that principle was distinctly recognised and re-affirmed, but the decision was rested on the peculiar phraseology of the will. It was held that the clause which directed that the proceeds of the sale should be appropriated to pay all just demands brought to the executors "in due and lawful time," distinguished this case from all others, and constituted it an...