16 Nat. Bank. Reg. 280 | U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Western Pennsylvania | 1877
This controversy arises out of the distribution of the proceeds of sale of certain real estate of the
These cases—and they have been consistently followed by numerous others—sufli-ciently show how firmly established in the federal courts is the rule of conformity to-the decisions of the state tribunals in questions touching the title to real estate. By whatever tenure, then, the courts of this state would adjudge the real estate, represented by the fund in controversy, to have been held, so we must decide. And upon this-subject the law of the state seems to be as well settled, by a series of long-adhered to decisions-of its highest court, as is the rule which makes it our guide. From McDermot v. Laurence, 7 Serg. & R. 438, through a long train of decisions to Ebbert’s Appeal, 20 P. F. Smith [70 Pa. St.] 79, the supreme court of the state has held, with unshaken constancy, that a recorded conveyance of title to real estate to the members of a partnership, as tenants in common, could not be charged, as to purchasers, mortgagees, and creditors, by parol evidence that it was purchased with partnership assets, and was used for partnership purposes, but that such a result could only be effected by an appropriate written instrument. In Hale v. Henrie, 2 Watts, 145, Mr. Justice Sargeant says:. “No averment of any right by parol, or by what is still less, the nature of the fund which pays, or the uses or purposes the property is applied to, can be allowed to stamp a character on the title inconsistent with that appearing on the deed and record, to the prejudice of third persons. ... In conformity, therefore, with the suggestion of Tilgli-man, C. J., in McDermot v. Laurence, after a review of the American and English cases on the subject (and, I think, in accordance with the course of legislation in Pennsylvania, on the modes of acquiring title to real estate), where partners intend to bring real estate into the partnership stock, we think that intention must be manifested by deed or writing, placed on record, that purchasers and creditors may not be deceived.” This doctrine is reaffirmed in Ridgway, Budd &
This court is therefore of opinion that the district court rightly adjudged the fund in controversy to be assets of the individual members of the firm of C. Zug & Co., and ordered its distribution accordingly; and that the bill of review must be dismissed at the cost of the complainants. An appeal was also taken from the order of the district court, which it is moved to quash. An appeal is allowed only upon final decrees of the court, in a suit in equity instituted by or against an assignee in bankruptcy where the sum in controversy exceeds five hundred dollars. As the record does not show.that the order complained of was of that character or was made in any such suit,. no appeal lies from it, and the motion to quash is, therefore, allowed.