56 Pa. Super. 604 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1914
Opinion by
This is an appeal from the decree of the court below ordering Benjamin N. Nolt to assign and transfer to John M. Froelich the judgment standing in the name of Nolt against Clara Y. Binkley, at No. 10, August Term, 1905, of the court of common pleas of Lancaster county, and the award of the orphans’ court of Lancaster county at No. 39, February Term, 1908, of said court, made to said Nolt on account of said judgment,
The answer averred that Froelieh was bail upon the interpleader bond and as such was a mere .volunteer, and not entitled to the relief prayed for. This contention is without merit. The appellant evidently had in mind those cases in which one man has paid the debt of another for which the party paying was not legally liable. The bond upon which Froelieh became a surety was one expressly provided for by statute in a proceeding to try the question of the ownership of personal property. His act in becoming surety was a voluntary one,
The contention upon which the appellant seems most confidently to rely, in his efforts to defeat the right of the appellee to recover from the estate of the principal debtor the amount which he as surety has been compelled to pay, may be best stated in the language of the answer: “There is no equity whatever in the claim of the petitioner, as the object of it is to enable the said sureties on. the interpleader bond to proceed by action upon the administration bond of the said Harry Binkley, upon which the said Benjamin N. Nolt, respondent, is one of the sureties;” When Benjamin N. Nolt became surety upon the administration bond of Harry Binkley, he did not make himself a surety for the pay
When a party is required to pay a debt for which he has made himself legally liable, as surety, for which another is liable as principal, and which that other in good conscience ought to pay, such payment operates to invest the party paying with the creditor’s rights and remedies against the principal debtor. This is the mode which equity adopts to compel the ultimate payment by him who in good conscience ought to pay the debt, to the relief of him whom none but the creditor could ask to pay. The general rule is well settled that if a surety has paid a debt, he is entitled to all the securities the creditor had against the principal debtor: Pott v. Nathans, 1 W. & S. 155; Burns v. Huntingdon Bank, 1 Penrose & Watts, 395; Armstrong’s Appeal, 5 W. & S. 352; Hill v. Denniston, 197 Pa. 271. When the judg
This appellant is no longer a creditor of the estate of Clara Y. Binkley, his claim has been paid by this appellee, the surety of the principal debtor; the appellant has standing in his name a-judgment in the court of common pleas, and an award in the orphans’ court of an amount almost sufficient to pay that judgment, out of funds which ought to be in the hands of the administrator of the estate. These securities are of no further use to the appellant, for he has been paid, but this appellee, the surety who has paid the debt, is entitled to have those securities, for as between him and the estate of Clara Y. Binkley the debt has not been paid. The court did not err when it directed this appellant to assign to.the appellee the award in the orphans’ court. That award had been by the orphans’ court clearly marked and designated as upon account of the judgment in the common pleas, and it thus became a security collateral to that judgment. The court in disposing of this matter was exercising, equitable jurisdiction, the parties litigant were before the court and it had authority to compel the appellant to assign to the
The decree is affirmed and the appeal dismissed at cost of the appellant.