35 Pa. Super. 158 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1908
Opinion by
In this action of ejectment one George W. Rowland was the common ancestor in title of the parties. It appears from the record that he executed two separate conveyances to different persons, each, on its face, embracing the premises in dispute.' The plaintiff’s title rests on a deed made by said Rowland to his mother, Abbie Rowland, dated September 20, 1874, acknowledged July 16,1875, and recorded August 19, 1878. The defendant plants his right on a conveyance from the same grantor to his sister, Harriet E. Martin, dated, acknowledged and recorded on July 27, 1875. By divers mesne conveyances, that need not here be considered, such estates as passed by
In Hart’s Appeal, 8 Pa. 32, Mr. Justice Bell thus spoke of a case stated: “Where a case is stated to procure the judgment of a court on certain facts submitted, effect is not to be given to it beyond those facts, and certainly not to compromise a title springing from a different condition of things. It is not even evidence, in a subsequent proceeding, of the facts stated; for circumstances may be conceded as existing to raise a question of law, without intending to admit them as true, and even without believing them.” What substantial difference can be pointed out between a formal case stated, and a special verdict where the facts are assented to by both sides and then put into the form of a jury’s finding, it is difficult to see. In McLughan v. Bovard, 4 Watts, 308, Gibson, C. J., in discussing this subject, says: “Nor can there be a difference in principle between a verdict and a case stated; for the legal effect must be the same, whether the parties undertake to say the truth for themselves, or put themselves on a jury to say it for them.” In Darlington v. Gray, 5 Whart. 487, Rogers, J., says: “The very object of a case stated, as of a special verdict, is to end the controversy by a judgment in chief on certain ascertained points.” But even if we are not to regard this special verdict as properly classified with a case stated, but rather with the pleadings, then the true effect of their use in a subsequent action is thus stated by Professor Wigmore, vol. II, sec. 1066: “The use here discussed, of informal or quasi-admissions, has nothing to do with the use of pleadings as solemn or judicial admissions (ante, sec. 1057). The latter are conclusive in their nature; but that effect is confined to the cause in which they are made. When used in other causes as ordinary admissions, they are of course not conclusive (on the principle of sec. 1058, ante);” etc. So in 1 Greenl. Ev., sec. 537, cited in Truby v. Seybert, 12 Pa. 101, we find it stated: “So, also, it (a record) is admissible against one of the parties in favor of a stranger, as containing a solemn admission or judicial declaration by such
The conclusion we reach, from an examination of these authorities, is that, in permitting the special verdict, agreed on in the action of sci. fa. sur mortgage, to be laid before the jury in the present case, the learned trial court ruled as favorably for the plaintiff as the law would permit him to do. The first assignment is overruled.'
It follows, we think, from what we have already said, that the portion of the charge quoted in the second assignment and the answer of the court to the plaintiff’s third point (third assignment) correctly stated the law. If in an action by the present plaintiff against Harriet Martin herself, her quasi-admissions, found in the special verdict, would not have been conclusive but only adverse testimony to go to the jury subject to any explanations he could offer, a fortiori the court could not declare, as matter of law, that the present defendant, her vendee, was concluded. Besides, with the finding that the deed from Rowland to Harriet Martin was first in point of time, it would follow as a legal conclusion, that she, even if a volunteer, took a good title not only as against her vendor, but against all the world except the creditors of the latter who would suffer by the fraud, and neither this plaintiff nor any of his predecessors in title appear to have been in that category. Neither of these assignments can be sustained.
Nor can we find anything to criticise in the answer of the court to the plaintiff’s fourth point, the subject of the only remaining assignment. The court admitted the evidence of a former judgment, although obtained by default, in an action between the predecessors in title of the present parties, as persuasive evidence in favor of the present defendant. This is precisely the effect that the law, prior to the act of 1901, had, from the earliest times, attached to such a judgment. But the court was pressed to say that such judgment, under the facts in evidence, might alone entitle the defendant to recover. We do not think the learned court was obliged so to charge. It is
Judgment affirmed.