9 Pa. 315 | Pa. | 1848
As we cannot look beyond the record, the depositions which show that the judgment was confessed by the defendant’s counsel, not only without, but expressly contrary to the instructions and protest of their client, must be laid out of the case; and for ground of relief we are restrained to the agreement entered on the docket, which, if it could not be enforced entire, a chancellor would not enforce at all. Notwithstanding the entry of it on the docket by direction of the counsel of both parties, it rested on parol — as much so as if it had been written on a separate paper — and it consequently falls under the letter of the statute of frauds, which declares that all leases, estates, or interests of freehold “ not put in writing and signed by the parties so making or creating the same, or by their agents thereunto lawfully authorized by writing,” shall have the effect only of leases at will. To say nothing of the positive requisition of the statute, an attorney at law, even when constituted by actual warrant, has no power to compromise his client’s suit, much less to bargain away his land, as was held in Huston v. Mitchell, 14 S. & R. 307, a case in all respects like the present, except that the judgment was entered pursuant to a compromise in the Supreme Court, where it was
Judgment reversed, and procedendo awarded.