White v. Heylman

• Citation: 34 Pa. 142
• Parties: White versus Heylman.
• Decision Date: 01 January 1859
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

34 Pa. 142

White versus Heylman.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

ERROR to the Common Pleas of Lycoming county.

G. White, for the plaintiff in error, cited Barnet v. Offerman, 7 Watts 130; Edgar v. Kline, 6 Barr 327.

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

The promissory note on which this suit was brought was not negotiable, and the equitable transferee of it, for whose use this action was commenced in the name of the payee, took it, subject to all the equities existing between the original parties, at the time of the transfer. The defence set up was want of consideration, and if the facts offered to be proved by the defendant, showed this to be the case, as between the maker and the payee, then the court erred in rejecting the offer, and they cannot be sustained on any ground, the particular reason assigned by them being clearly wrong.

The offer was to prove, that the defendant employed Heylman, the plaintiff, to purchase for him two land warrants, belonging to the estate of Robert Morris, for which he paid him seventy-five dollars for his services, and the price at which he obtained the warrants, which were purchased of Maria Nixon, daughter of the decedent, and assigned by her to defendant. That the warrants were located in Clinton county, and the survey returned in defendant's name, and accepted at the land office. That these lands were sold by defendant to a person residing in Philadelphia, and he agreed to make a deed by a certain day. That when defendant went to Harrisburg for the purpose of getting a patent, he ascertained that patents had been issued for the same lands, to George A. Latimer, and when defendant went to Philadelphia to see Heylman, he told him Latimer had no interest in the land, and exhibited to him a blank transfer to him from Latimer, for the patents, and that in order to obtain a transfer to him, of these patents, to enable him to make title, he paid Heylman three hundred dollars in money, and gave the note for which this suit was brought. That Heylman acted as the agent in purchasing the warrants, and also obtained the title to these patents which were virtually Heylman's, Latimer having no interest in them.

If these facts had been proved, it would have been perfectly clear, that Heylman's conduct in procuring the patents was fraudulent, and that the patents were really the property of the defendant, although nominally issued to Latimer, who was simply the tool of Heylman. The defendant was entitled to patent these lands in his own name, and if his agent interposed, and prevented his obtaining them by procuring their issue to a nominal party, from whom he held a transfer, he was bound in good faith to transfer them to his principal for whom he had acted in the purchase of the warrants, upon which these lands were located and surveyed for the defendant.

The defendant being the owner of the land had sold it, and agreed to make a deed for it by a certain day. If Heylman had not intervened, the patents would have been issued to the defendant, and he could have completed his sale. By the intervention of the plaintiff, the title of the Commonwealth appeared to be in a third person, and the defendant was...