Strimpfler v. Roberts

• Decision Date: 17 May 1852
• Citation: 18 Pa. 283
• Parties: Strimpfler <I>versus</I> Roberts.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 283

18 Pa. 283

Strimpfler versus Roberts.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

May 17, 1852.

ERROR to the Common Pleas of Schuylkill county.

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The case was argued by Bannan and Mallery, for plaintiffs in error.

The title of the plaintiffs was founded upon an alleged equity or implied trust, arising from an entry in John Keble's blotter, that Peter Benson had paid the purchase-money for lands for which warrants had issued in the names of other parties. Evidence had been given that Peter Benson was at the time a clerk in the land office, and other evidence was given and offered to rebut title in Benson.

In this case, no trust was ever admitted; and the conveyance by the warrantee, and patent obtained, and a claim under that legal title for more than forty years, without any assertion of claim to the contrary, presents a case wherein a court of equity would not interfere on behalf of persons claiming under the alleged trust. A court of law in Pennsylvania, in the exercise of equity powers, is bound by the same rules as is a court of equity. If an equitable title existed, it is to be presumed from lapse of time to have been abandoned: 2 Pa. Rep. 394, Star v. Bradford.

The blotter of John Keble, who was a clerk in the land office, containing his private memoranda, was not legal evidence till the Act of 31st March, 1823, which made certified copies of papers in the public offices evidence: Purdon's Dig. tit. Evidence. The old purchase blotter was not a record; copies of it were not evidence till 1823, and its contents were not notice to any one. The defendants showed a legal title from the Commonwealth, confirmed by patent in 1802, and the patent on record; though a patent under ordinary circumstance, and within a proper time, is not claimed to be conclusive and to stop all inquiry as to the right to the land (1 Ser. & R. 203, Duer v. Boyd; 5 W. & Ser. 66; 6 Ser. & R. 137; Id. 118), yet after the lapse of time that has happened in this case, or after twenty-one years, the patent should be held as conclusive evidence of title to the land against one claiming the same under the same title, by an implied trust founded upon the evidence of Keble's blotter, that the money was paid by him. The holder of the legal title has a legal seisin, and a constructive possession of unseated land, which can be divested only by an actual possession inconsistent with it: 7 Ser. & R. 134, Miller v. Shaw; 13 Id. 22. The claim of the plaintiffs, founded upon an implied or resulting trust, was liable to be lost by non-claim, or may be presumed, from length of time, to have been abandoned: 2 Watts 214-15, Foulk v. Brown.

Hughes and Meredith, for defendants in error.—The plaintiffs claimed the land in dispute by virtue of the evidence of the payment of the purchase-money for it by Peter Benson; first, by the entry in Keble's blotter, No. 13,580, charging him with the land and crediting him with the payment of the purchase-money; second, by the entry in old purchase voucher, No. 13,584, crediting Peter Benson with the payment of the purchase-money; and third, by the entry in the Receiver General's day-book, charging Peter Benson with the lands, and crediting him with the purchase-money for the same; fourth, by proof of the transfer of unsatisfied warrants and credits to Peter Benson, in different months during 1794, amounting in the aggregate to £974 11s. 6d.

The deed poll of Sophia Myer to Cumberland Dugan, upon which the patent was obtained, is dated 10th March, 1801, and contains no date of warrant in the description, nor is the township mentioned in the description, nor does it mention the land as having been surveyed, but recites merely that a warrant or order has been issued for "four hundred acres of land in Berks county." This description applies as fully to two other warrants in the name of Sophia Myer, for 400 acres each, under warrants given in evidence. It appears, that Sophia Myer made a deed poll dated 31st December, 1794, to John Myer, for 400 acres, but it was described as land in Brunswig township, Berks county. Afterwards, in 1807, John Myer conveyed to Pott and Morris, the warrant of 5th May, 1794, but the land was described as lying in Norwegian township late Brunswig. If John Myer had owned the land in question, he would have known that it lay in Pinegrove township.

There is no evidence that Sophia Myer ever had any interest in the land in dispute; there is none that she was the wife of John Myer; there is no evidence of any transfer by John Myer to Cumberland Dugan. It was not shown that the certificates for the payment of the purchase-money of the Sophia Myer warrant accompanied the title under which the defendants below claim. The return of survey of the Sophia Myer warrant of 5th May, 1794, is of a survey on the 5th January, 1795, of land in Pinegrove township in the county of Berks, containing 445 acres 120 perches and allowance.

One whose name is used as a warrantee, but who neither applies for the land, nor has survey made, nor pays the purchase-money, has no title legal or equitable: 1 Ser. & R. 111; 5 W. & Ser. 821. Sophia Myer having neither procured survey or paid purchase-money, had no title to convey to Dugan. The fact that John Myer handed in the application is no evidence of title or equity in him. All presumption of title in him is rebutted, first by the fact that he was one of the justices of the peace who certified that the land was vacant; and next, because the records show that Peter Benson paid the purchase-money. The title is in him who pays the purchase-money: 8 Watts 110. A patentee obtains no title against the real owner. He and those claiming under him are visited with notice of all imperfections in his title appearing on the books and records of the land office: 5 W. & Ser. 85, Urket v. Coryell; 4 Binn. 149, Correy v. Caxton; 4 Id. 219.

Dugan obtained the patent shortly after the death of Benson, and during the minority of his children. He did not visit the lands, or pay taxes on them; nor did he improve them. The claimants through him should not prevail against the plaintiffs.

Abandonment from lapse of time is not to be presumed against one who had warrant and survey, and had paid the purchase-money to the Commonwealth.

A trustee in possession of land will be presumed to hold it consistent with his trust; and it will require unequivocal acts of ouster or adverse claim to divest the cestui que trust.

The opinion of the Court, filed May 17, 1852, was delivered by BLACK, C. J.

A warrant for 445 acres and 120 perches, issued from the land office, in the name of Sophia Myer, on the 5th of May, 1794. A survey was made, including the land in dispute, on the 5th of January, and returned on the 10th of February, 1795. On the 10th of March, 1801, Sophia Myer conveyed to Cumberland Dugan, by deed poll of that date, and a patent was issued to Dugan the 1st of October, 1802. It appears from the blotters and vouchers in the land office, and the day-book of the Receiver General, that this warrant, and thirty-five others, were paid for by the application of credits, which Peter Benson had on the books of the office for lost warrants surrendered. The plaintiffs claim under Benson, whose heirs, on the 18th of April, 1838, conveyed the Sophia Myer tract and five others, on which the purchase-money was paid by their father, at the same time, and in the same way, to Henry K. Strong, for the consideration of $1 and services rendered. Mr. Strong conveyed certain undivided parts to the other plaintiffs. There was also a third title given in evidence under a warrant to Henry Feather, dated in 1818; but being of no value in itself, and having no influence on the rights of the parties who claim under Benson or Dugan, it is not necessary to notice it.

The plaintiffs assert their right to recover through Benson, for whom, they allege, that the holder of the legal title is but a trustee. The defendants, without pretending to be the owners of the patent, rely on it as showing a fatal weakness in the title of their adversaries.

It is the law of England and of Pennsylvania, that where one buys land and pays for it with his own money, but permits the conveyance to be made in the name of another, a resulting trust arises in favor of him who paid the purchase-money; and the nominal grantee holds the land, as trustee for the real purchaser. This principle is applicable as well to purchases from the Commonwealth, as to conveyances from one private individual to another. The person whose name is used, as a warrantee, is a trustee for him who took out the warrant and paid the fees and purchase-money: (1 Yeates 166; 2 Yeates 119.)

A resulting trust of this sort may be established by parol, even in direct contradiction of a warrant, patent, or deed; and as it may be proved, so it may be contradicted by the same species of evidence. In the present case the plaintiffs had a right to show, by any legal evidence within their power, that Benson had paid the purchase-money; and they did prove it by the blotters, vouchers, &c., usually relied on in old cases. It was proper, also, to permit the defendants to prove that he did not make the payment for himself, or on his own account, but as agent for Sophia Myer, or somebody else; and any circumstance which would throw light on the transaction, or explain its true character, ought to have been received.

After the extracts from the books in the land office had been read, and some evidence had been given by the defendants, tending to show that Benson had acted as a mere agent in paying for this and other warrants, the defendants offered to prove that Benson, who was a clerk in the land-office, and a man of very little property, was credited, on the same books,...