Devling v. Little
| Decision Date | 01 January 1856 |
| Citation | 26 Pa. 502 |
| Parties | Hugh Devling et al. versus M. P. Little. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Fleming and Linn, for plaintiffs in error.
Hale, contrà.
The alleged errors will be noticed in the order in which they are assigned.
1st. The plaintiffs in error cannot complain that the court ordered certain releases to be filed of record. In no possible event can this order affect injuriously the plaintiffs in error's case.
2d and 3d. It is said in the argument that it needs but a glance at the depositions of D. B. Taylor and Judge Parsons to see their inadmissibility. We have examined them carefully, and are well satisfied with their admission. The testimony contained in those depositions, so far as it was received by the court, is not liable to the objection made against it, that it related to conversations and statements to which the defendants were strangers. It was competent for the plaintiff to show his own acts in carrying out the agreement in reference to the releases; and what was said by him and others whilst procuring the releases, was proper evidence to illustrate what was done. A declaration accompanying an act is often so intimately connected with the thing done that the one must necessarily be received to explain the other. And such was the character of the declarations contained in the depositions referred to.
The remaining assignments are to the charge of the court, and will be considered together. And here, a brief statement of the case is required.
Moses P. Little, the plaintiff below, purchased, by articles of agreement, of D. B. Taylor and others, several tracts of timber land, lying in the county of Clinton. On the 17th day of August, 1854, he contracted, by writing, to sell to the defendants a part of the land, which he had so purchased, for the sum of eighteen thousand one hundred and fifty dollars, eight thousand dollars to be paid on the first day of October then next, when a deed in fee simple, clear of all encumbrances, was to be made to the vendees five thousand and seventy-five dollars to be paid on the first day of April, 1855, and five thousand and seventy-five dollars on the first day of December, 1855. The two last payments to be secured by bond and mortgage, to be executed simultaneously with the deed.
After this agreement was made, and before the first payment became due, Little received a deed from Taylor and others for the land purchased, and gave two mortgages for the unpaid purchase-money, amounting in all to the sum of $15740. There were also judgments against Little in Clinton county, which were unpaid, for about three thousand dollars. A few days before the first payment became due on the contract in suit, the parties met in Lockhaven, and the purchasers, learning that the land was encumbered by the mortgages and judgments above mentioned, refused to make the payment until the liens were removed. According to the testimony of Mr. Mackey, at whose office the meeting took place, it was finally agreed that the parties should meet in Philadelphia on the 29th September, when a certain sum of money was to be paid directly to Mr. Taylor, who had offered to release the mortgage liens upon receiving it, and one of the bonds of five thousand and seventy-five dollars was to be deposited with Mr. Mackey as security for the payment of the judgments.
Mr. Little went to Philadelphia before the 29th of September, procured releases to be executed ready for delivery upon payment of the money as agreed upon; but the defendants did not meet him there in accordance with the agreement. Subsequently, on the 12th of December, 1854, this suit was brought to recover the instalment due upon the 1st October of that year.
The cause was tried on the 12th September, 1855. Upon the trial it appeared that the judgments had been satisfied since the suit was commenced. The releases for the mortgages, which were in the hands of Mr. Mackey, were, by the order of the court, deposited with the prothonotary.
The defence was: First, that the action was prematurely brought before a conveyance was tendered by the plaintiff....
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Packer v. Owens
...108 U.S. 292. Either of these co-executors and co-plaintiffs could have satisfied this judgment in the lifetime of both: Devling v. Little, 26 Pa. 502; De Haven v. Williams, 80 Pa. 480; Jackson v. Shaffer, 11 Johns. 513; D'Invilliers v. Abbott, 4 W.N. 124; Wood v. Smith, 92 Pa. 379; Fesmire......
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McClenachan v. Malis
... ... disregards the rules applicable: Boyd v. [310 Pa ... 107] Hoffman, 241 Pa. 421, 424, 88 A. 675; Irvin ... v. Bleakley, 67 Pa. 24, 29; Devling v. Little, ... 26 Pa. 502, 508; Dalzell v. Crawford, 1 Clark 155 ... The ... record shows that between the date of the collapse of the ... ...
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McClenachan v. Malis
...disregards the rules applicable. Boyd v. Hoffman, 241 Pa. 421, 424, 88 A. 675; Irvin v. Bleakley, 67 Pa. 24, 29; Devling v. Little, 26 Pa. 502, 508; Dalzell v. Crawford, X Clark The record shows that between the date of the collapse of the settlement and the time of the trial, plaintiff, by......
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| Conrow v. Conrow
...no harm, as a verdict for or against him is a full protection. A receipt or release by one executor discharges the debt. Devling v. Little, 26 Pa. 502. This is answer to the first assignment of error. No application in reference to the non-joinder of Howard Conrow, executor, as one of the p......