Felt v. Cook
| Decision Date | 04 October 1880 |
| Citation | 95 Pa. 247 |
| Parties | Felt & Co., for use of Gifford, <I>versus</I> Cook & Hackett. Gifford's Appeal. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Before SHARSWOOD, C. J., MERCUR, GORDON, TRUNKEY, STERRETT and GREEN, JJ. PAXSON, J. absent
Error to and appeal from the Court of Common Pleas of Cameron county: Of May Term 1880, Nos. 139, 140.
John G. Hall and C. H. McCauley, for appellant and plaintiff in error.—We submit that the jurisdiction of the court to decree satisfaction of a judgment is confined to cases of actual payment, and does not exist where there is an alleged payment by operation of law, arising merely from the existence of an equitable defence. A judgment might be equitably extinguished by a failure of consideration, but the court cannot summarily satisfy it on proof of the facts. And so of all cases of merely equitable or legal defences by way of set off. They are not payment in the proper and legal sense of the word.
A review of the legislation on the subject fortifies this view. Originally the court had no power to direct satisfaction. Then came the Act of April 11th 1856, authorizing the prothonotary to enter satisfaction when the original instrument is produced, with plaintiff's receipt endorsed in presence of two witnesses, and the satisfaction is allowed by a judge's certificate. Then the Act of March 27th 1865, authorized the prothonotary, under the direction of the court, to satisfy a judgment where, by the production of the record, it appears to have been fully paid, under or by virtue of an execution. Finally, the Act of March 14th 1876, authorizing the court to direct the prothonotary to mark a judgment satisfied of record where, upon the hearing of a rule for that purpose, it should appear to the satisfaction of the court that said judgment has been fully paid. In this case, the only payment found by the court, or alleged by the defendant below, was a mutual extinguishment, resulting, as the court thought, from the provisions of the bankrupt law. We submit that this was not payment within the intent and meaning of the Act of Assembly authorizing satisfaction by the court.
A. G. Olmstead and Newton & Green, for appellees and defendants in error.—The construction given to the Act of Assembly by the appellant is too narrow, and destroys the purpose intended by the legislature. Although the words "fully paid" are employed in the act, it can hardly be supposed that the legislature intended this act to be inapplicable except in cases where defence was such as could only be given in evidence under the technical plea of payment, but if this be the rule it is submitted that the act is broad enough to cover this case. The rule of the Pennsylvania law that, under the plea of payment with leave, evidence may be given which shows that ex æquo et bono the plaintiff ought not to recover, is adopted by the Circuit Court: Latapee v. Pecholier, 2 W. C. C. R. 180; King v. Diehl, 9 S. & R. 409; Hartzell v. Reiss, 1 Binn. 289.
This was an application to the court below to direct a judgment to be marked satisfied. The application was necessarily made under the Act of 14th March 1876, because the power of the court to make such an order without the verdict of a jury, and where satisfaction has not been obtained by execution process, exists only by force of that statute. It had been decided by this court that even upon allegation and proof of payment of a judgment,...
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