Mathers's Executor v. Patterson

• Decision Date: 01 January 1859
• Citation: 33 Pa. 485
• Parties: Mathers's Executor versus Patterson.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 485

33 Pa. 485

Mathers's Executor versus Patterson.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

ERROR to the Common Pleas of Juniata county.^*

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Casey and Parker, for the plaintiff in error.

S. Hepburn and Doty, for the defendant in error.

The opinion of the court was delivered by STRONG, J.

It is exceedingly doubtful whether the court below had any power to send back the report of auditors that they might certify issues of law, after final judgment had been entered thereon, and after that judgment had been removed to this court, and returned undisturbed because no questions of law were raised upon the record. There must be a time when the power of a court to open its judgments, obtained adversely, ceases. In England it ends with the term at which the judgment is signed. True, there is a reason for this which does not exist with us, arising from the peculiar manner in which the record is there made up and kept; but the rule of the English courts would seem to have been recognised as existing here: Catlin v. Robinson, 2 Watts 379-80; Stephens v. Cowan, 6 Watts 513.

Waiving, however, a further consideration of this question, our opinion is, that the judgment of the court below upon the issues certified by the auditors was a correct judgment. The agreement between Mathers and William H. Patterson evidently had for its first purpose, equality between the partners, alike in the investments and in the profits and losses. Of the personal property on hand at the time the parties contracted, a large part represented investments previously made for the improvement of the real estate which they owned as tenants in common with two others. Another large part was needed for the payment of debts of the former firm, of which they had both been members. For both these things, it was necessary to make provision. To accomplish this, it was agreed that, of the property on hand, there should first be set apart sufficient to pay the debts of the old firm; and next, a part equivalent to what had been expended in the improvement of the real estate. The net remainder, it was agreed, should be deemed the capital stock of the new firm. The evident understanding of the parties was, that the improvement fund thus set apart, was to be considered as real estate, or as absorbed in the land, and consequently was to be treated as so absorbed. The previous investments of John and Robert Patterson constituted a part of that improvement fund, and were, therefore,...